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Why does Arcane Thievery feel clunky?


eldenbri.1059

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This is such a cool utility that I keep coming back to it from time to time. Something about casting it feels awkward. It says it has a 0.25 cast time, and currently I'm casting it with the 20% cast speed increase from Malicious Sorcery.

Does anyone else have the same perception? If so, do you know what causes it?

I have tried recording video of it in pve, and it seems to perform well. I do notice that it rotates the character to face the target, so maybe this is the issue that I'm feeling in wvw fights where there's a lot of movement?

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I've tried a bunch more tests with this in pve, and Arcane Thievery seems to work flawlessly. If I force my character to face away from the target, the spell still casts and I don't get rotated.

I've also recorded a couple of wvw fights, and it seems to be working fine. There are a couple of times where it has seemed to fail to work, but my assumption is the target dodged or something similar during that time.

I have to assume that whatever I'm experiencing in wvw fights is just me being spastic.

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Its not just you. It feels clunky to me as well, and I remember there being a lot of complaints on the old forums about it as well, even after its buffs. But I don't recall anyone ever being able to pinpoint why it feels clunky, just that it does.

Its certainly a good skill though

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Feels clunky to use but I think the real problem is half the time you can’t tell if it did anything because the other guy gets his boons back and you get more conditions on you again.

For me I find arcane thievery in an awkward halfway position. In terms of cleansing the mantra is far superior even with cast time, for boon rip disenchanter is much better. Null field is better for an AoE effect like arcane thievery and is on the same cool down unless you go chaos and master of manipulation. It’s also not as conducive to the enemy dying like mantra of distraction for a key interrupt.

If arcane thievery had ammo then I might give it a shot.

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But its not a bad skill, it doesn't really need any buffs to it, and ammo would almost certainly be a straight up buff.

I do think that you did nail down at least part of why it feels so clunky though. Even though its a strong skill, stealing 3 boons and giving 3 conditions away is more or less meaningless right now due to the current state of the game. Its hardly noticed at all. Still though, I would rather see everything be toned down and AT left alone instead of changing this skill. Despite being outshined in any 1 area, it combines quite a few useful mechanics into 1 skill. Boon steal + condi transfer + guaranteed quickness is a pretty nice kit, and its only 20s CD when traited

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Arcane Thievery is pretty great, it just whiffs randomly sometimes but not often enough to worry about. Even if you have no conditions and the target has no boons, we're still talking about a skill that gives decent quickness relative to its cooldown, compare to Haste or Frenzy.

When traited it's even more useful, granting 2 seconds of mirror, and you get to use it more often.

Personally, I'd actually like to see a long channel version of arcane thievery that pulses 1 boon steal, 1 condi transfer, and slow for as long as you hold the button down, but GW2 doesn't really support button holds on class skills for whatever reason. Maybe that could go on scepter 3 xD.

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@OriOri.8724 said:Even though its a strong skill, stealing 3 boons and giving 3 conditions away is more or less meaningless right now due to the current state of the game. Its hardly noticed at all. Still though, I would rather see everything be toned down and AT left alone instead of changing this skill.

Same. The insane spamminess of the game's combat is really dragging a lot of class/skill/effect design down with it.Individual conditions and boons become meaningless, which means any trait not at least applying a stack of 5 is pointless.Effects cleansing single conditions are usually meaningless, too. There's 10 conditions on you, not 1.Sending 3 to your opponent while stealing 3 of their boons? So what, you're back up to max-conditions (and they are to max-boons) 0,25s later anyhow.Nevermind how effect-overloaded skills have to be to begin with, because each individual use of them is so meaningless. With an AA (including sigils / traits) often causing 5-6 secondary effects on top of the 2-3 (why? Why not just 1?!) printed in the tooltip, no wonder everything is overloaded.

So yeah, first they ought to make things meaningful again.

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@OriOri.8724 said:But its not a bad skill, it doesn't really need any buffs to it, and ammo would almost certainly be a straight up buff.

I do think that you did nail down at least part of why it feels so clunky though. Even though its a strong skill, stealing 3 boons and giving 3 conditions away is more or less meaningless right now due to the current state of the game. Its hardly noticed at all. Still though, I would rather see everything be toned down and AT left alone instead of changing this skill. Despite being outshined in any 1 area, it combines quite a few useful mechanics into 1 skill. Boon steal + condi transfer + guaranteed quickness is a pretty nice kit, and its only 20s CD when traited

If I need cleanses I go mantra of resolve, it clears the same number of conditions and I get 2 uses out of it, the cast removes all conditions too. In terms of cleansing resolve blows arcane thievery away completely.Boon removal is harder to gauge tbh but disenchanter without traits to thievery removes more boons on more enemies and deals more damage for 5s longer CD, it’s much better.Null field does the same as arcane thievery but will remove 2 extra conditions and 2 extra boons in an AoE. Even if you only get the first 2 ticks of it on enemies and on allies it still has done more than arcane thievery and has the same base CD. With traits null field becomes a lot better than arcane thievery.

Even if you nerfed every single class including mesmer back to pre HoT levels arcane thievery would only be good if the skills above got considerable nerfs, 5-10s extra CD, even then it would be debatable.

Edit: Someone will point it out about null field doesn’t give quickness or put slow on someone, that’s true but null field affects 5 enemies and 5 allies, a fair trade off.

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I've been using it more in wvw, and I'm really coming to like Arcane Thievery. I mostly fight small-scale while roaming. Sure there are times when there are a scourge-firebrand pair roaming together (or really a scourge plus anything). In those cases, it's true that you tend to get condi's applied again pretty quickly.

But in a lot of cases, I think the opponent is surprised to see the condi's back on them. And since I'm playing a condi build with a very limited variety of conditions, I tend to get some cover conditions from this at a minimum. And I need some way to remove resistance.

The old disenchanter was perfect for me. But Arcane Thievery feels like a utility that solves multiple problems

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@apharma.3741 said:

@OriOri.8724 said:But its not a bad skill, it doesn't really need any buffs to it, and ammo would almost certainly be a straight up buff.

I do think that you did nail down at least part of why it feels so clunky though. Even though its a strong skill, stealing 3 boons and giving 3 conditions away is more or less meaningless right now due to the current state of the game. Its hardly noticed at all. Still though, I would rather see everything be toned down and AT left alone instead of changing this skill. Despite being outshined in any 1 area, it combines quite a few useful mechanics into 1 skill. Boon steal + condi transfer + guaranteed quickness is a pretty nice kit, and its only 20s CD when traited

If I need cleanses I go mantra of resolve, it clears the same number of conditions and I get 2 uses out of it, the cast removes all conditions too. In terms of cleansing resolve blows arcane thievery away completely.Boon removal is harder to gauge tbh but disenchanter without traits to thievery removes more boons on more enemies and deals more damage for 5s longer CD, it’s much better.Null field does the same as arcane thievery but will remove 2 extra conditions and 2 extra boons in an AoE. Even if you only get the first 2 ticks of it on enemies and on allies it still has done more than arcane thievery and has the same base CD. With traits null field becomes a lot better than arcane thievery.

Even if you nerfed every single class including mesmer back to pre HoT levels arcane thievery would only be good if the skills above got considerable nerfs, 5-10s extra CD, even then it would be debatable.

Edit: Someone will point it out about null field doesn’t give quickness or put slow on someone, that’s true but null field affects 5 enemies and 5 allies, a fair trade off.

Yes, I agree with you that its outshined. Mantra of resolve is a much better cleanse, but its only a cleanse. Disenchanter is a much better strip, but its only a strip (and the wildly broken damage, but that's a different issue). AT is both a strip and a cleanse in one skill, so it has to be weaker than mantra of resolve and disenchanter in their respective strengths, otherwise AT would be way overtuned. That's why I think its balanced. It combines the, very useful, effects of 3 of our other skills into a single skill, and the tradeoff is that its weaker in both aspects. That's good design.

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@OriOri.8724 said:

@OriOri.8724 said:But its not a bad skill, it doesn't really need any buffs to it, and ammo would almost certainly be a straight up buff.

I do think that you did nail down at least part of why it feels so clunky though. Even though its a strong skill, stealing 3 boons and giving 3 conditions away is more or less meaningless right now due to the current state of the game. Its hardly noticed at all. Still though, I would rather see everything be toned down and AT left alone instead of changing this skill. Despite being outshined in any 1 area, it combines quite a few useful mechanics into 1 skill. Boon steal + condi transfer + guaranteed quickness is a pretty nice kit, and its only 20s CD when traited

If I need cleanses I go mantra of resolve, it clears the same number of conditions and I get 2 uses out of it, the cast removes all conditions too. In terms of cleansing resolve blows arcane thievery away completely.Boon removal is harder to gauge tbh but disenchanter without traits to thievery removes more boons on more enemies and deals more damage for 5s longer CD, it’s much better.Null field does the same as arcane thievery but will remove 2 extra conditions and 2 extra boons in an AoE. Even if you only get the first 2 ticks of it on enemies and on allies it still has done more than arcane thievery and has the same base CD. With traits null field becomes a lot better than arcane thievery.

Even if you nerfed every single class including mesmer back to pre HoT levels arcane thievery would only be good if the skills above got considerable nerfs, 5-10s extra CD, even then it would be debatable.

Edit: Someone will point it out about null field doesn’t give quickness or put slow on someone, that’s true but null field affects 5 enemies and 5 allies, a fair trade off.

Yes, I agree with you that its outshined. Mantra of resolve is a much better cleanse, but its only a cleanse. Disenchanter is a much better strip, but its only a strip (and the wildly broken damage, but that's a different issue). AT is both a strip and a cleanse in one skill, so it has to be weaker than mantra of resolve and disenchanter in their respective strengths, otherwise AT would be way overtuned. That's why I think its balanced. It combines the, very useful, effects of 3 of our other skills into a single skill, and the tradeoff is that its weaker in both aspects. That's good design.

If it was balanced it would be useful and used more, however it isn’t because it is weaker than the alternatives for its use. If you need the cleanse from AT you are better off with other skills, if you need the strip you’re better off with other skills. If you for some reason want both null field is objectively more useful especially when fighting 2 enemies as it will take 2 boons and you can stay in it for more cleanses.

The game and above other skills would need huge nerfs to make AT useful even traited to 20s CD. While I’m not against that I still doubt if AT would be used much.

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@apharma.3741 said:

@OriOri.8724 said:But its not a bad skill, it doesn't really need any buffs to it, and ammo would almost certainly be a straight up buff.

I do think that you did nail down at least part of why it feels so clunky though. Even though its a strong skill, stealing 3 boons and giving 3 conditions away is more or less meaningless right now due to the current state of the game. Its hardly noticed at all. Still though, I would rather see everything be toned down and AT left alone instead of changing this skill. Despite being outshined in any 1 area, it combines quite a few useful mechanics into 1 skill. Boon steal + condi transfer + guaranteed quickness is a pretty nice kit, and its only 20s CD when traited

If I need cleanses I go mantra of resolve, it clears the same number of conditions and I get 2 uses out of it, the cast removes all conditions too. In terms of cleansing resolve blows arcane thievery away completely.Boon removal is harder to gauge tbh but disenchanter without traits to thievery removes more boons on more enemies and deals more damage for 5s longer CD, it’s much better.Null field does the same as arcane thievery but will remove 2 extra conditions and 2 extra boons in an AoE. Even if you only get the first 2 ticks of it on enemies and on allies it still has done more than arcane thievery and has the same base CD. With traits null field becomes a lot better than arcane thievery.

Even if you nerfed every single class including mesmer back to pre HoT levels arcane thievery would only be good if the skills above got considerable nerfs, 5-10s extra CD, even then it would be debatable.

Edit: Someone will point it out about null field doesn’t give quickness or put slow on someone, that’s true but null field affects 5 enemies and 5 allies, a fair trade off.

Yes, I agree with you that its outshined. Mantra of resolve is a much better cleanse, but its only a cleanse. Disenchanter is a much better strip, but its only a strip (and the wildly broken damage, but that's a different issue). AT is both a strip and a cleanse in one skill, so it has to be weaker than mantra of resolve and disenchanter in their respective strengths, otherwise AT would be way overtuned. That's why I think its balanced. It combines the, very useful, effects of 3 of our other skills into a single skill, and the tradeoff is that its weaker in both aspects. That's good design.

If it was balanced it would be useful and used more, however it isn’t because it is weaker than the alternatives for its use. If you need the cleanse from AT you are better off with other skills, if you need the strip you’re better off with other skills. If you for some reason want both null field is objectively more useful especially when fighting 2 enemies as it will take 2 boons and you can stay in it for more cleanses.

The game and above other skills would need huge nerfs to make AT useful even traited to 20s CD. While I’m not against that I still doubt if AT would be used much.

I guess it depends what you want out of it. I use AT primarily as a CC in my open world build. The fact that it also applies quickness, cleanses conditions, and steals boons is just icing on the cake, but can be critical abilities in the right scenario. For example, CC isn't very useful against the Legendary Bandit Executioner, but the boon strip sure is since he usually has a 25 stack might up! Or a 3 condi cleanse for a build like condi Mirage that otherwise runs only single cleanses. It's a versatile skill that may not be strictly the best for any one purpose, but rolls several useful abilities into one skill on a fairly short cooldown.

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@apharma.3741 said:

@OriOri.8724 said:But its not a bad skill, it doesn't really need any buffs to it, and ammo would almost certainly be a straight up buff.

I do think that you did nail down at least part of why it feels so clunky though. Even though its a strong skill, stealing 3 boons and giving 3 conditions away is more or less meaningless right now due to the current state of the game. Its hardly noticed at all. Still though, I would rather see everything be toned down and AT left alone instead of changing this skill. Despite being outshined in any 1 area, it combines quite a few useful mechanics into 1 skill. Boon steal + condi transfer + guaranteed quickness is a pretty nice kit, and its only 20s CD when traited

If I need cleanses I go mantra of resolve, it clears the same number of conditions and I get 2 uses out of it, the cast removes all conditions too. In terms of cleansing resolve blows arcane thievery away completely.Boon removal is harder to gauge tbh but disenchanter without traits to thievery removes more boons on more enemies and deals more damage for 5s longer CD, it’s much better.Null field does the same as arcane thievery but will remove 2 extra conditions and 2 extra boons in an AoE. Even if you only get the first 2 ticks of it on enemies and on allies it still has done more than arcane thievery and has the same base CD. With traits null field becomes a lot better than arcane thievery.

Even if you nerfed every single class including mesmer back to pre HoT levels arcane thievery would only be good if the skills above got considerable nerfs, 5-10s extra CD, even then it would be debatable.

Edit: Someone will point it out about null field doesn’t give quickness or put slow on someone, that’s true but null field affects 5 enemies and 5 allies, a fair trade off.

Yes, I agree with you that its outshined. Mantra of resolve is a much better cleanse, but its only a cleanse. Disenchanter is a much better strip, but its only a strip (and the wildly broken damage, but that's a different issue). AT is both a strip and a cleanse in one skill, so it has to be weaker than mantra of resolve and disenchanter in their respective strengths, otherwise AT would be way overtuned. That's why I think its balanced. It combines the, very useful, effects of 3 of our other skills into a single skill, and the tradeoff is that its weaker in both aspects. That's good design.

If it was balanced it would be useful and used more, however it isn’t because it is weaker than the alternatives for its use. If you need the cleanse from AT you are better off with other skills, if you need the strip you’re better off with other skills. If you for some reason want both null field is objectively more useful especially when fighting 2 enemies as it will take 2 boons and you can stay in it for more cleanses.

The game and above other skills would need huge nerfs to make AT useful even traited to 20s CD. While I’m not against that I still doubt if AT would be used much.

I think you're missing the point I'm trying to make. Its not as powerful as the mantra or as the disenchanter, but if you need a bit of condi cleanse and also boon strip/steal, then taking AT allows you to get that amount of utility from only 1 slot, whereas you would have to sacrifice 2 slots if you took the better mantra and disenchanter both, leaving you with 1 less slot for the rest of your build. That's why I believe AT is balance right now, it frees up a whole new slot for you to take another utility skill, while still offering decent cleanse and boon steal. Clearly not the best in either category, but considering you free up a utility slot its a good option if you need both imo

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Alternatively, try Null Field/Arcane Thievery/Blink for a great generalist kit.

Running Disenchanter and Mantra of Resolve actually puts you at a loss for boon rips and condi removal (minus recast of the mantra). Disenchanter rips 5 on up to 4 targets (minus chronophantasma), whereas Null Field + Arcane Thievery nets you 8 (total). Casting both uses of mantra of resolve gets you 6 cleanse vs the 8 total on Null Field + AT.

Plus, having another Ethereal Field to combo off of is amazing and easy to use thanks to Sword Ambush. Plus you can get all the clones chaos armor using Infinite Horizon which can easily stack a ton of Weakness/Confusion/Cripple (randomly of course).

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Probably because cast times don't actually reflect how long it take to active a skill. You cast time, animation time to perform and aftercast time (whatever that is). So some skills/utilities feel pretty slow to use. That's likely why 0.25 sec (which is pretty much instant) feels much longer. The only thing that seems snappy are insta casts.

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@OriOri.8724 said:

@OriOri.8724 said:But its not a bad skill, it doesn't really need any buffs to it, and ammo would almost certainly be a straight up buff.

I do think that you did nail down at least part of why it feels so clunky though. Even though its a strong skill, stealing 3 boons and giving 3 conditions away is more or less meaningless right now due to the current state of the game. Its hardly noticed at all. Still though, I would rather see everything be toned down and AT left alone instead of changing this skill. Despite being outshined in any 1 area, it combines quite a few useful mechanics into 1 skill. Boon steal + condi transfer + guaranteed quickness is a pretty nice kit, and its only 20s CD when traited

If I need cleanses I go mantra of resolve, it clears the same number of conditions and I get 2 uses out of it, the cast removes all conditions too. In terms of cleansing resolve blows arcane thievery away completely.Boon removal is harder to gauge tbh but disenchanter without traits to thievery removes more boons on more enemies and deals more damage for 5s longer CD, it’s much better.Null field does the same as arcane thievery but will remove 2 extra conditions and 2 extra boons in an AoE. Even if you only get the first 2 ticks of it on enemies and on allies it still has done more than arcane thievery and has the same base CD. With traits null field becomes a lot better than arcane thievery.

Even if you nerfed every single class including mesmer back to pre HoT levels arcane thievery would only be good if the skills above got considerable nerfs, 5-10s extra CD, even then it would be debatable.

Edit: Someone will point it out about null field doesn’t give quickness or put slow on someone, that’s true but null field affects 5 enemies and 5 allies, a fair trade off.

Yes, I agree with you that its outshined. Mantra of resolve is a much better cleanse, but its only a cleanse. Disenchanter is a much better strip, but its only a strip (and the wildly broken damage, but that's a different issue). AT is both a strip and a cleanse in one skill, so it has to be weaker than mantra of resolve and disenchanter in their respective strengths, otherwise AT would be way overtuned. That's why I think its balanced. It combines the, very useful, effects of 3 of our other skills into a single skill, and the tradeoff is that its weaker in both aspects. That's good design.

If it was balanced it would be useful and used more, however it isn’t because it is weaker than the alternatives for its use. If you need the cleanse from AT you are better off with other skills, if you need the strip you’re better off with other skills. If you for some reason want both null field is objectively more useful especially when fighting 2 enemies as it will take 2 boons and you can stay in it for more cleanses.

The game and above other skills would need huge nerfs to make AT useful even traited to 20s CD. While I’m not against that I still doubt if AT would be used much.

I think you're missing the point I'm trying to make. Its not as powerful as the mantra or as the disenchanter, but if you need a bit of condi cleanse and also boon strip/steal, then taking AT allows you to get that amount of utility from only 1 slot, whereas you would have to sacrifice 2 slots if you took the better mantra and disenchanter both, leaving you with 1 less slot for the rest of your build. That's why I believe AT is balance right now, it frees up a whole new slot for you to take another utility skill, while still offering decent cleanse and boon steal. Clearly not the best in either category, but considering you free up a utility slot its a good option if you need both imo

I know what you’re saying but here’s the thing:

If you get conditions on you and have to use it you use it but usually don’t rip anything useful or impactful.If you use it to rip boons you don’t have it for cleansing later on without additional sources of cleansing. Additional sources of cleansing are usually much better.Null field is arguably better.

There are very few situations where you need to both cleanse and removing certain boons will turn a fight, most of the time you will be using it for one or the other where in as said earlier other options are better.

This also glazes over the whole not hitting properly too where it has such a long history of not hitting most long term players are apprehensive about even using it at all because if it misses, you’re probably dead.

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@Kiroshima.8497 said:Alternatively, try Null Field/Arcane Thievery/Blink for a great generalist kit.

Running Disenchanter and Mantra of Resolve actually puts you at a loss for boon rips and condi removal (minus recast of the mantra). Disenchanter rips 5 on up to 4 targets (minus chronophantasma), whereas Null Field + Arcane Thievery nets you 8 (total). Casting both uses of mantra of resolve gets you 6 cleanse vs the 8 total on Null Field + AT.

Plus, having another Ethereal Field to combo off of is amazing and easy to use thanks to Sword Ambush. Plus you can get all the clones chaos armor using Infinite Horizon which can easily stack a ton of Weakness/Confusion/Cripple (randomly of course).

You should also take into account null field being an AoE someone can (and will) walk out of, so reduce it to 2 boons ripped. Disenchanter can be dodged but is harder to see with visual clutter but also can be interrupted and blinded so has its down sides but is sort of AoE removal which is much more consistent. All in all I’d say they’re about equal in boon rip realistically.

The mantra can be used 4 times and it’s cast in the same time frame as AT and null field. That’s a total of 12 conditions removed + a full cleanse on charge though realistically probably only 2-3 condition cleanse, a lot more than null field and AT.

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I agree about the issue that when AT fails, you are often in a very bad spot because you were counting on it.

I don't think you can just compare counts of boons stripped or condis removed, however, because AT does more. If you see an opponent with 25 stacks of might, you're not just stripping the might, you're stealing it. Similarly, if someone loads you up with a few burning stacks and a couple of other condis, you're not just cleansing them, you're putting them back on the target.

Ironically, in the space of this one thread, I've gone from being a critic of this utility to being a defender of it... lol.

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I remember trying to incorporate it in a build when pof dropped to help strip things like warrior resistance, but as you said the unreliability is the problem. Offensively it is great, but defensively when kitten hits the fan it's very difficult to use for cleanse while disengaging, especially as it requires a target to offload condis to.

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I totally went from the OP’s post to this reply, so I do apologize if this has already been mentioned.The reason it feels clunky is because it has no stun break/leap/teleport attached to it. It’s extremely hard to compete with the well known mesmer optimal utility kit, that incorporates blink and either SoM or Decoy as “must haves” (the exceptions being the StG Mirages, that for whatever reason thought having an extra mirage mirror on a 25 sec cd with a 1/2 sec evade frame is good). All of the Mesmer utility skills that make for a great meta build have 1 thing in common, they all have high mobility, and evade potential. To have a build that doesn’t bank on either of those criterias, is the landmark of meme build that is hardly competitive due to its situational effectiveness.

My 2 cents. Apologies if I got lost in the sauce somewhere up there. I’ll edit accordingly tomorrow :wink:

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There's a couple things about the skill that make it odd or less than useful.

First, I recall that it has an enormous aftercast. Having a quick cast time is great, but feeling mechanically clunky when you use it is going to be heavily linked to this huge aftercast.

Then you have the issue of mechanical potency. Arcane thievery has the jack of all trades problem of doing a couple things at the same time, but none of them well. If you need condition removal or boon strip there are far better options. If you need both, null field is still potentially a better option. In what case is AT better than the other options? It's kinda hard to place.

Lastly you have issues of mechanical interactions. Stealing a 25 stack of might is great, but 5 of those are gonna fall off immediately, and the rest will be gone in another 10 seconds or so. The nature of might stacking and boon stacking in general is semi-rapid reapplication, making the actual benefit of stealing those boons pretty questionable. Similarly, most conditions aren't fire and forget, they're effective because of overwhelming reapplication. AT provides 1 single hit of conditions that need to be applied multiple times.

Ultimately it's just a skill that mechanically does a couple of different things that are all a bit too weak to be relevant in the current meta balance, so the skill is overall not useful for doing anything in particular.

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I mean, it's still straight up superior to things like Frenzy, Haste, and Elixir U. It gives quickness, slows the target, and steals boons, and transfers 3 conditions.

Stealing boons has natural synergy with Chaos, since that's 9% more boon duration and condi duration for your other skills. It's a solid choice when going for something like Staff hybrid mirage (plus regen on cloak for another boon). It also is handy for sniping Shield Warriors (aka the majority) who try to stack too much might during their block, nabbing firebrand boons in a team fight for your own sustain, or stealing the scourge's very limited stability so you can F3 them to hell and back, all with no phantasm ai to screw things up. Also, it's almost unblindable, since you transfer the 3 conditions then steal. Disenchanter can be knocked out of its attack with CC or just be blinded.

And of course there's mirror uptime for laughing at any deadeye or pewpew ranger that tries to blink at you. Now that I think about it, Ranger (especially those who run strength of the pack) are pretty vulnerable to AT. Since SotP doesn't pulse stab, you can straight up take 10 stacks for yourself. If they run Entangle instead, you can just let the root stack a little bit, then send that straight back to them rather than just cleansing, and you'll still get 2s of mirror to prevent him from doing anything back to you.

Of course, this comes from WvW roaming and not PvP. Sw/Torch/Staff is just too fun with weaver runes and null field+arcane thievery.

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