With all the projectile hate: Add Unseen Fury from Guild Wars Original Series to Shadow Arts

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Unseen_Fury
Stance. Inflicts Blindness condition on adjacent foes (3...9...10). You cannot be blocked by Blinded foes for 10...26...30 seconds.
https://wiki.guildwars.com/images/e/e2/Unseen_Fury.jpg

Convert it to guild wars 2, remove the stance section & the aoe blind and add it's effect to Rending Shade. this will synergize with Shadow Siphoning

 

Edited June 11 by Lithril Ashwalker.6230

[Codename T.2847]

YEAH RIGHT, it's bad enough that whiffed/blinded/blocked backstabs don't reveal thief even for a split second, and that reflected Death Judgements hit deadeyes for like 500 while both are full power xD

As a deadeye who wants to use Rifle, be a good boy and wait out reflects and dont shoot into them, and as a d/p literally just stack stealth over and over and drive your target(s) to mistakes through paranoia, that's how you are supposed to play it, not with a crutch mechanic like unblockable of any sort. 

Edit: Ah, nvm, I just saw you wanted to put it to rending shade, thought it was for some random minor trait in ShadArts, I don't think people would take that over shadow rejuvenation unless they are giga mega confident in their thief. 

Edited June 12 by Codename T.2847

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

I don't have a problem with unblockable attacks, but if there's gonna be a trait for it I still think that it should be in critical strikes or deadly arts, not shadow arts. There needs to be a trade off between offensive ability and sustain, allowing both in shadow arts is unhealthy and does nothing for build variety imo.  

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

3 hours ago, Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

I don't have a problem with unblockable attacks, but if there's gonna be a trait for it I still think that it should be in critical strikes or deadly arts, not shadow arts. There needs to be a trade off between offensive ability and sustain, allowing both in shadow arts is unhealthy and does nothing for build variety imo.  

what in critical strikes would you add it to to get both effects? it would make sense

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

On 6/13/2024 at 7:04 AM, Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:

what in critical strikes would you add it to to get both effects? it would make sense

I'd probably add it to signets of power tbh. Make it something like "Remove 2 boons from your target on signet use. For 3 seconds after using a signet, your attacks can't be blocked" and give it a 10s internal cooldown so you can't spam it. If you think the boonrip is too much, make it restore 3 ini instead. This would work very well with infiltrator's signet while also alerting the enemy that the thief has an unblockable buff ready to go, offering some opportunity for counterplay much the same way that basilisk venom can be played around. It would also force a healthy tradeoff in what you bring to a fight in a way that making blinded enemies unable to block the thief in a traitline that already has spammable blind just doesn't do, which goes a long way to making it powerful but balanced.  

Edited June 22 by Jugglemonkey.8741
Edit: got the name of a trait wrong lol

[ZvolTx.3165]

11 hours ago, Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

I'd probably add it to signets of power tbh. Make it something like "Remove 2 boons from your target on signet use. For 3 seconds after using a signet, your attacks can't be blocked" and give it a 10s internal cooldown so you can't spam it. If you think the boonrip is too much, make it restore 3 ini instead. This would work very well with infiltrator's signet while also alerting the enemy that the thief has an unblockable buff ready to go, offering some opportunity for counterplay much the same way that basilisk venom can be played around. It would also force a healthy tradeoff in what you bring to a fight in a way that making blinded enemies unable to block the thief in a traitline that already has spammable blind just doesn't do, which goes a long way to making it powerful but balanced.  

This was the logical conclusion I had as well. Signets of power, both thematically AND balance-wise seems to make the best candidate to add an unblockable effect to. 

I made a thread about it a while back. https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/144822-signets-of-power/

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

On a similar-but-kinda-tangential note, I also think that deadly arts would be a great place to have something like an armor penetration perk. I'm thinking something scaled so it's a 1% damage buff against zero toughness enemies (read: zerker ele etc) going up to 20% against max toughness builds (read: minstrel warrior etc), and I'd probably add this to improvisation, keeping the extra stolen item mechanic but replacing the rest (as much as I loved older versions of this trait back in the day, I don't think it's worth the grandmaster slot these days outside of core/daredevil mirror matchups, and deadly arts power builds need some more oomph to compete with crit strikes). That way builds that already get deleted by a thief won't get dunked on any harder, but you'll take a bigger chunk out of tanky targets when you trait aggressively (ie without taking shadow arts) and this will pair nicely with the passive poison & weakness on steal etc.

I was considering this kind of trait for critical strikes, but combining these ideas would mean using venoms as the trigger for unblockable attacks in deadly arts and that would actually break condi thief in a bad way lol. Access to unblockable on signet use in critical strikes and a scaling armor penetration trait in deadly arts could be interesting though, and might mix things up a bit. 

On 6/23/2024 at 9:07 AM, ZvolTx.3165 said:

This was the logical conclusion I had as well. Signets of power, both thematically AND balance-wise seems to make the best candidate to add an unblockable effect to. 

I made a thread about it a while back. https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/144822-signets-of-power/

I missed this entirely while having a break from the game haha, good thinking batman ^^

Edited June 24 by Jugglemonkey.8741