PVE TRAIT AND SKILL WISHLIST:

[Bunny.9834]

PVE TRAIT AND SKILL WISHLIST:

Rearrange TRICKERY Traits to streamline their purpose. 

Top Line = Focuses on quickness, initiative and tricks. 

1. Burst of Agility - rework. Gain quickness (4s) when you attack from behind or from the side. CD: reduce to 20s 
2. Trickster - remove condition. 
3. Quick pockets - Gain initiative, quickness (4s) and reduce recharge of steal by 5s when you swap weapons. 

Middle Line = Focuses on steal. 

1. Thrill of the Crime - same. 
2. Bountiful Theft - same. 
3. Sleight of Hand - increase daze to 3 seconds in PVE. 

Bottom Line = Focuses on condition

1. Uncatchable - same. 
2. Pressure Striking - same. 
3. Deadly Ambush - same. 

ACROBATICS: 

- Acrobatics is still an underwhelming trait line after all these years. The grandmaster could use a lot of tuning up and the simplest way is to add self-quickness to it. 

Assassin's Reward - Heal yourself whenever you use a skill that uses initiative. Heal yourself for each point of initiative spent. If you hit an enemy below 50% gain quickness (4s) CD: 10s 

Upper Hand - Gain initiative, regeneration and quickness (2s) when you evade an attack. 

Don't Stop - add: When you gain swiftness also gain an additional boon: PvE: Quickness (3s), PvP/WvW: Resistance (3s). ICD: 5s

 

WEAPONS: 

 

Sword: 
1a. Slice - reduce casting time to 1/4s. add vulnerability. 
1b. Slash - reduce casting time to 1/4s. add vulnerability. 
1c. Crippling strike - reduce casting time to 1/4s. 

2. Infiltrator's Strike - fix bug (or tool tip) that makes traiting with Swindler's Equilibrium damage less than the untraited skills. 

3a. Flanking Strike - reudce initiative cost to 3. Larcenous Strike: steal boons and gain quickness if you foes has no boons. 
3b. Pistol Whip - reduce casting time to 1/2s. Reduce initiative cost to 4.  

BONUS: 

OFF-HAND SWORD IDEAS: 

Playstyle: Off-hand sword is meant to be an offensive weapon that provides easy access to stealth to prepare a surprise attack. Because of the easy access to stealth, its trade-off is it cannot be spammed for perma-stealth. Part of it's utility is accesss to Assassin's Remedy while you're revealed to cleanse condition. The 5th skill is a  high risk, high reward skill that lets you shadowstep behind the target to inflict a powerul strike damage. Using it will reveal you, which synergizes with skill 4. Because it's an off-hand sword, it gives access to 4 new dual wield skills. All are named after GW1 Assassins. 

Skill 4a: Way of the Assassin - 5 initiative, 1 1/2s casting time. 
- Stealth yourself and gain 5 stacks of might and fury. You cannot use this skill while you are in stealth. 
- When you are revealed, this skill flips to: Assassin's Remedy. 

Skill 4b. Assassin's Remedy - 2 initiative, Range 600, Aftercast 3/4s
- Shadowstep away from your target and lose 2 conditions. Gain 1 initiative for each condition removed this way.
- Combo Finisher: Leap

Skill 5: Blade of Nika - 8 initiative, Range 1200 
- Shadowstep behind your target and deliver a powerful blow. 
- If this skill hits a foe below 50% health: steal 2 boons and apply 10 stacks of vulnerability.
- Using this skill from stealth reveals you (3s).  
- If this skill doesn't hit a target or misses, you lose all initiative. 
- (in PVE, if you succesfully hit, gain 3 initiative back and gain quickness). 

 

DUAL WIELD:

Skill 3 (Sword): Miku's Assault - 5 initiative, 1/2s casting time, Range 240, Evade frame 1s, Aftercast: 3/4s 
- Unleash an attack hitting your foe multiple times (5x) causing vulnerability (5s) with each strike. The final attack causes blindness (3s)
- Using this skill from the side or behind increases it's damage by 10% and removes a boon. 

Skill 3 (Dagger): Zenmai's Strike - 4 initiative, 1 1/2s casting/channel time Range 180, Aftercast 1/2s
- Unleash a flurry of attacks that applies poison and dazes (1/2s) enemies (up to 5). 
- If you hit more than 1 enemy, you gain 2 initiative. Gain might for each enemy hit. 
- This skill blocks projectiles. 

Skill 3 (Pistol): Anton's Shot - 6 initiative, 1/2s casting time, Range 600, Aftercast 3/4s
- Shoot an unblockable bullet then shadow step to the target's location to deliver a sword attack. If this attack hit, it causes 5 stacks of bleeding and cripple (4s). After 2 seconds, return your original location. 
- Combo Finisher: Projectile

Skill 3 (Scepter): Panaku's Conundrum - 4 initiative, 3/4s casting time, Range 900, Radius 360
- Create a dark energy explosion on your target. 
- Target Ally: Allies around your target gain barrier, protection, and resolution. 
- Target Enemy: Foes around your target suffer from torment, bleeding, and poison. 
- Combo Finisher: Blast

[ZeroTheRuler.7415]

1. My main ask would be to replace the initiative gain in "Preparedness" with something else and make the +3 initiative baseline. It's one of the major reasons trickery is pretty much required for most builds.

Quote

Minor Master

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/b/b5/Preparedness.png/25px-Preparedness.png Preparedness

Increases maximum initiative by 3. Gain increased expertise.

2. My second ask would be to remove the initiative limitation on specter.

3. Another large QoL would be to add a indicator icon to show when quick pockets is ready to use.

4. Quickness on DE should not allow Death's Judgement to be cancelled by a auto attack. To me this is more of a bug then anything else. I also found some weird interactions with DE + Scepter and steal time.

5. Acrobatics seems very survival orientated. Why not lean into that and make at least a single top, bottom or middle line synergize with heal specter builds? That's what I was hoping a while after EoD landed.

6. Sword damage should be buffed for PvE encounters.

7. Deadeye bugs related to malice being masked over by weather effects should be fixed, deadeye not being able to target PvE meta boss event targets should also be fixed.

8. Combo fields should prioritize ones cast by self first!

9. Quickness deadeye needs some love

Edited December 11, 2023 by ZeroTheRuler.7415

[Dadnir.5038]

The OP sure do love quickness... However, self-quickness is ultimately something that only benefit solo play. In group content, the value of the self-quickness on traits/skill is poor.

[Tails.9372]

For Deadly Aim they should remove the damage penalty and turn it into a variant of the ranger LB trait by adding "Ini cost for pistols and harpoon-guns reduced by 1" and "critically striking foes grants boons (Swiftness (10s), Quickness (5s), 15s icd)" to it.

For Invigorating Precision they should go back to the 10% baseline for the on crit dmg based healing and then add "While you are under the effects of Fury you gain "Incoming Healing Increase: 50%" to it.

For Silent Scope they should remove the stealth on dodge and replace it with "While you have maximum Malice stacks you gain access to your Stealth Attack.".

Edited December 11, 2023 by Tails.9372

[ZeroTheRuler.7415]

Oh also I forgot.... rework venoms so that if you have two thieves in the same subgroup that venoms are not overwritten.

[Doggie.3184]

Deadly Aim trait: replace it for something useful to most critical strike weapons, with Pierce becoming baseline on Pistols and Speargun (mostly already is on speargun).

Or if no Pierce baseline then bring back Ricochet for +damage and Pistol bullet bounce and place it in Trickery or Deadly Arts so both Condi/Strike can have it as option.

Quick Pockets: Do literally anything to alleviate the playstyle this creates. We shouldn't have to depend on placing the same weapons in both weaponsets and swapping between them just to fix not having enough ini, especially on Specter. It's an anti-fun meta.

Edited December 12, 2023 by Doggie.3184

[Bunny.9834]

15 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

The OP sure do love quickness... However, self-quickness is ultimately something that only benefit solo play. In group content, the value of the self-quickness on traits/skill is poor.

The Deadeye fulfils the group quickness role and ANET doesn't want to have group boon support for core classes (that's why they removed it from core warrior and rangers). 

The purpose of these changes is to breathe life into the core and solo thieves to make their gameplay more exciting and fast paced.  

[Dadnir.5038]

5 hours ago, Bunny.9834 said:

The Deadeye fulfils the group quickness role and ANET doesn't want to have group boon support for core classes (that's why they removed it from core warrior and rangers). 

The purpose of these changes is to breathe life into the core and solo thieves to make their gameplay more exciting and fast paced.  

You don't understand, I'm not suggesting that thief should share quickness more. I'm telling you that introducing so many self quickness source wouldn't "breath life into core and solo thieves", it would cripple them on the long term because "balance".

You only look at the obvious benefits that you want to get on a small scale and lose sight of the big picture. The consequences of what you suggest are:

• The first consequence is that thief players will get used to have easy access to perma-quickness and thus when they won't have quickness their profession will "feel bad" to play. On the long term it will ,severly restrict build diversity.
• The second consequence is that thief will face the competitive subforum witch hunt even more than they already do. And this will lead to nerfs. Nobody want to see thiefs on steroids in competitive modes. The stealth issue is already bothersome, if on top of that thiefs are like a furious beehives due to easy access to quickness, the hate will reach sky high heights.
• The third consequence is that the devs will do like always, they will nerf around the issue to "fix" it. Which mean lower base coefficients and slower base attack speed. In group content, it will put thief in drought for years until they find an appropriate balance point just like it took 6-7 years for reaper to be competitive in group content because it had easy access to self-quickness.

I garantee you that you that this little bit of pleasure you'd get from what you suggest isn't worth the long term consequences that this would bring.

[Yasai.3549]

My only wish is Deadly Aim be changed to a ricochet with every critical strike from Pistols. 
100% Crit Unload would become so fun.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

On 12/11/2023 at 4:26 AM, ZeroTheRuler.7415 said:

1. My main ask would be to replace the initiative gain in "Preparedness" with something else and make the +3 initiative baseline. It's one of the major reasons trickery is pretty much required for most builds.

2. My second ask would be to remove the initiative limitation on specter.

3. Another large QoL would be to add a indicator icon to show when quick pockets is ready to use.

4. Quickness on DE should not allow Death's Judgement to be cancelled by a auto attack. To me this is more of a bug then anything else. I also found some weird interactions with DE + Scepter and steal time.

5. Acrobatics seems very survival orientated. Why not lean into that and make at least a single top, bottom or middle line synergize with heal specter builds? That's what I was hoping a while after EoD landed.

6. Sword damage should be buffed for PvE encounters.

7. Deadeye bugs related to malice being masked over by weather effects should be fixed, deadeye not being able to target PvE meta boss event targets should also be fixed.

8. Combo fields should prioritize ones cast by self first!

9. Quickness deadeye needs some love

I agree. If anet is fully against making Preparedness baseline I feel like they should atleast move quick pockets to another traitline and rework it to just on weapon swap make with a 9 sec cd to match weaponswap and rework a trait in every traitline to be similar to either quicknpockets or SA ini gain on entering and exiting stealth. This way a thief has a way to gain those 3 ini lost through gameplay parameters. I've tried using SA with the trait and does help with ini loss but leaves ur steal less useful.

Edited December 12, 2023 by Psycoprophet.8107

[Psycoprophet.8107]

6 hours ago, Yasai.3549 said:

My only wish is Deadly Aim be changed to a ricochet with every critical strike from Pistols. 
100% Crit Unload would become so fun.

This sounds great.

[ZeroTheRuler.7415]

23 hours ago, Psycoprophet.8107 said:

I agree. If anet is fully against making Preparedness baseline I feel like they should atleast move quick pockets to another traitline and rework it to just on weapon swap make with a 9 sec cd to match weaponswap and rework a trait in every traitline to be similar to either quicknpockets or SA ini gain on entering and exiting stealth. This way a thief has a way to gain those 3 ini lost through gameplay parameters. I've tried using SA with the trait and does help with ini loss but leaves ur steal less useful.

Honestly I don't think quick pockets should be moved.

Regarding changing quick pockets to 9s: Currently quick pockets triggers with shroud. This means you can bring a second weapon set for utility and still havs access to quick pockets. This is a good thing. A different cooldown wouldn't really be the answer I think.

Pretty much ALL viable builds (pvp, wvw and pve) take Trickery and a major incentive is because of the +3 initiative (it has other very useful traits in it as well). This means balance is pretty much dictated by that +3 initiative being there so.... I feel the change is warranted. Besides that there are plenty of reasons to still take Trickery. The preparedness trait change could open up more build opportunities for all game modes.

Edited December 13, 2023 by ZeroTheRuler.7415
Typo

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

On 12/11/2023 at 12:26 PM, ZeroTheRuler.7415 said:

Oh also I forgot.... rework venoms so that if you have two thieves in the same subgroup that venoms are not overwritten.

i just want venoms to be worked similar to soulbeast stance sharing for a duration rather than having charges that can get cleansed easily tbh while it still uses our own condition damage and duration from the one sharing it. itll let it stack duration

Edited December 18, 2023 by Lithril Ashwalker.6230

[kash.9213]

On 12/15/2023 at 7:01 PM, Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:

i just want venoms to be worked similar to soulbeast stance sharing for a duration rather than having charges that can get cleansed easily tbh while it still uses out own condition damage and duration from the one sharing it. itll let it stack duration

I like Scale Venom and use it on my main Specter template in WvW right now, but I also have to watch everyone's behavior to know it's not going to waste if retargeting and focus doesn't happen fast enough. I keep it slotted because it can flip a fight when I'm surgical with it but in general use it's a flop like more than half of the time in mid to large fights. 

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

3 hours ago, kash.9213 said:

I like Scale Venom and use it on my main Specter template in WvW right now, but I also have to watch everyone's behavior to know it's not going to waste if retargeting and focus doesn't happen fast enough. I keep it slotted because it can flip a fight when I'm surgical with it but in general use it's a flop like more than half of the time in mid to large fights. 

Yeah, in wvw the ammo>charge system is a bad design because cleanse spam and target inconsistencies but with the ability to hit all attacks as a sort of stance duration share of the venom type then we can control how we engage in the fights

[bq pd.2148]

On 12/16/2023 at 4:01 AM, Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:

i just want venoms to be worked similar to soulbeast stance sharing for a duration rather than having charges that can get cleansed easily tbh while it still uses our own condition damage and duration from the one sharing it. itll let it stack duration

yet it would get an ICD if turned into a stance and so its still only useful against single targets with allies. otherwise it would be way too strong.

[Antycypator.9874]

Well, I have many wishes for thief, and they're:

1. Cancel Deadeye Mark — I don't care about Mercy. This game isn't made for Deadeye's Mark. Losing your enemy, marking random thing because autotargeting wants you to attack a weapon rack, DE mark not refreshing at certain boss mechanics/phases.

2. Everyone wants an off-hand sword and general buffs to sword in PvE.

3. Deception skills should break enemy targeting. If Mirage can do it, so I demand the same for us.

4. What if Shadowstep was 1-way teleport but with 2 charges?

5. Preparations should trigger instantly.

6. Critical Strikes traitline doesn't really feel focused on critical strikes or powerful at all. Some of the traits don't even fit there, e.g. Signets of Power, Sundering Strikes and Deadly Aim.

7. Why the hell Deadly Aim comes with reduced damage? I don't remember other pierce-traits having this sort of downside. Lead The Wind and Heartpiercer (before changes)? I suppose they weren't that powerful.

8. Shortbow should finally decide if it wants to be power or condi weapon, because it's bad at everything.

9. Not having 25% movement speed in traits is a sin. Thieves should by default run faster and all we have is Signet of Shadows, swiftness on dodge and 2s Superspeed on stealth enter (used to be perma 50% speed increase).