Guild Wars 2

What’s the point of this? What problem does this solve?

sirrealist.1360:

What’s the point of this? What problem does this solve?

Did you read the first sentence?

If you’re a thief you can answer this, how many times have you tossed a stolen skill just to activate steal?

I think it is a good idea +1 from me.

I’d almost go as far as to suggest an F3 for a second stolen item slot.

F1- steal, same as before
F2- unknown- Stolen item
F3- unknown, stolen item #2

F3 would only become available if there was something slotted into F2, and if you had something slotted into F3 and used steal again then nothing would be stolen since the slot is taken up.

Reason I suggest this is to combo stolen items for planning, but also with a rule added to it. The second stolen item cannot be a copy, so stealing from a guardian 2 times would not give you 2 mace cracks. Reason being some stolen skills on their own are already quite powerful, imagine 2X consume ectoplasm. Taking from the list of already possible stolen skills, stealing from the same profession 2 times would grant:

Guardian: Use staff
Warrior: club shockwave
Engineer: Rusty Scrap Strike
Ranger: Tooth Stab
Thief: Exploding Venom Sac
Elementalist: throw lava rock
Mesmer: throw feathers
Necromancer: Throw scale

Tbh I’d be in favor of some new stolen skills to better this list, because some of them are actually quite ridiculous, like lava rock :-/

i actually like this, although, can we please steal from ranger pet too? i know it was disabled at some point (before i stopped using my thief the first time)…

Ranger: Healing Spring
Ranger Pet: Egg

Or, at least give us a funny “Meh” vocal for our character as we toss aside stolen skills so we ckittene steal again.

+1 OP

DeWolfe.2174:

Or, at least give us a funny “Meh” vocal for our character as we toss aside stolen skills so we ckittene steal again.

+1 OP

That’s funny, but it makes me wonder:

What if f3 just discarded the stolen item and reduced the steal cooldown in stead? Kinda like how engineers can pack up turrets when they’re not tactically sound. This would mean you could use steal (and its associated traits) more often but not actually get more stolen items, which might actually open up some more viable all-tricks sorts of builds as a better thief support spec. (e.g. stealing reduces recharge on all traps or something)

PopeUrban.2578:

DeWolfe.2174:

Or, at least give us a funny “Meh” vocal for our character as we toss aside stolen skills so we ckittene steal again.

+1 OP

That’s funny, but it makes me wonder:

What if f3 just discarded the stolen item and reduced the steal cooldown in stead? Kinda like how engineers can pack up turrets when they’re not tactically sound. This would mean you could use steal (and its associated traits) more often but not actually get more stolen items, which might actually open up some more viable all-tricks sorts of builds as a better thief support spec. (e.g. stealing reduces recharge on all traps or something)

Could help out a lot actually, although it could indirectly lead to the nerf of Bountiful theft since X2 boon steal/share would be pretty kitten in pvp on a shorter cooldown. Same with perma fury/swiftness from thrill of the crime since we can already get so much of them from x/x/x/30/30. It isn’t the same result from x/x/x/x/30 but the potential abuse is what would cause the nerf like every other bizarre nerf we see time to time.

A suggestion to better the list on 2 time steal:

Guardian: Use staff
Warrior: Club Shockwave throw rock
Engineer: Rusty Scrap Strike throw gear
Ranger: Tooth stab (pet: varies)
Thief: Exploding Venom Sac Smoke Bomb (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Smoke_Bomb_
Elementalist: Throw lava rock (reduce burn to 10 seconds)
Mesmer: Throw moa feathers Reflecting crystal (breaks after 3 projectiles are reflected or expires after 5 seconds).
Necromancer: Throw scale Throw Coral shard

right right and how about giving the guardian a stealth or a extra shout virtue just to make it more fun, doesn’t a stun skill satisfy you and all stealth skills

AGGabriel.9230:

right right and how about giving the guardian a stealth or a extra shout virtue just to make it more fun, doesn’t a stun skill satisfy you and all stealth skills

its not about “getting more OP” but the fact that the steal system is not exactly user friendly in terms of repeatable usage.

I mean, sure Steal is brilliant if all you want is confusion/stun some HP and stealth. But other then that, it is worthless as most items you get is going to “block” you from using steal again, often when you need it.
It is a QoL problem rather then a actual balance problem though.

Everything that currently changes Steal is balanced around the stolen skill replacing it. Without that, you’d have to change quite a few traits.

AGGabriel.9230:

right right and how about giving the guardian a stealth or a extra shout virtue just to make it more fun, doesn’t a stun skill satisfy you and all stealth skills

Well if thats the general consensus then no F3, just F2 for use of the stolen skill.

It also helps with knowing the CD on steal since the stolen skill blocks that timer from being visible. Similar to the suggestion to view utility/healing/elite skill cooldowns while in DS, it’s just nice to have that knowledge visible to make better decisions. It gives zero statistical benefit.

NinjaEd.3946:

In an attempt to let us choose when to use steal and to let us use our stolen item, can we get an F2 already?

F1- steal, same as before.
F2- Unknown- > stolen item

If you steal and already have a stolen item, you simply do not obtain that item since the slot is taken up

I’m sorry but people have been posting threads with this exact idea since Beta…

I really don’t think it will happen.

Anet also said a while ago that they had pretty great ideas lined up for Thief and were looking forward to fan-reaction. Nothing appears to have happened yet…

Lord Krilik.3692:

NinjaEd.3946:

In an attempt to let us choose when to use steal and to let us use our stolen item, can we get an F2 already?

F1- steal, same as before.
F2- Unknown- > stolen item

If you steal and already have a stolen item, you simply do not obtain that item since the slot is taken up

I’m sorry but people have been posting threads with this exact idea since Beta…

I really don’t think it will happen.

Anet also said a while ago that they had pretty great ideas lined up for Thief and were looking forward to fan-reaction. Nothing appears to have happened yet…

I never claimed this to be original, simply refreshing the topic. Anet does read these forums, they just rarely ever respond to them (why else would they close threads without reading them?).

I’m also awaiting these great ideas, jeopardy music has been playing so long its morphed into some horror piano theme song for the next American horror story season.

This would be great, especially on builds with low steal cooldown and in fights against engineers.

People already complain about trickery builds. I don’t see them doing something that will buff that build.

The simplest fix to the OPs problem would be having F2 be a drop stolen item skill, though depending on if it has a cast time or not it could end up being just as effective as hitting F1 to clear it.

Doesn’t hitting F1 twice accomplish what you’re looking for? It cancels the action of the stolen skill and steals. I don’t get it…

Hammerguard.9834:

Doesn’t hitting F1 twice accomplish what you’re looking for? It cancels the action of the stolen skill and steals. I don’t get it…

It doesn’t accomplish what they’re looking for. In your situation, the player must always “discard” the stolen item. What they’re asking for is retaining the use of the stolen item without having to give up the ability to steal. In this way, you could steal something that you know you will want to save for later (i.e. feathers for an extra stealth, gunk for confusion combo with p/d, &c.), but you wouldn’t have to lock yourself out of your steal skill in order to hang onto it.

This is in a similar vein with engineer turrets, in that deploying a turret locks you out of your tool belt skill, and you have to get rid of your turret if you want it back. This is why you find some people take rifle turret but never use the rifle turret because they would rather just spam surprise shot as much as possible.

I’m not sure that adding an F2 or F3 option would be the best way to go about this, but nothing better comes to my mind at the moment.

All in all, I think this is a suggestion I can get behind, though it’s possible it may necessitate some tweaking of certain things related to stealing.

At the very least, without any mechanical changes, it would be nice to see the steal cooldown while you have an item. We’re pretty good at “feeling” the cooldown, but it’s still long enough that it’s hard to get an exact sense of when steal will be ready again.

so you want to be able to store up a whole bunch of stolen abilitys.. that would be really balanced for pvp. how many mesmer abilitys that give you all buffs at once do you want? you should atleast be able to chain 4 knockdown abilitys in a row vs another profession. i can see why you want this ability.. dosent seem logical though.

zaxon.6819:

so you want to be able to store up a whole bunch of stolen abilitys.. that would be really balanced for pvp. how many mesmer abilitys that give you all buffs at once do you want? you should atleast be able to chain 4 knockdown abilitys in a row vs another profession. i can see why you want this ability.. dosent seem logical though.

You must’ve just skimmed the first few posts without reading on or you don’t quite understand what’s being suggested. Go ahead, I’ll let you catch up before adding onto this any further.

i just dont see how its hard to burn the item you steal if you dont even want it by the time your next steal comes up.

zaxon.6819:

i just dont see how its hard to burn the item you steal if you dont even want it by the time your next steal comes up.

Because it’s an inconvenience to burn useless skills in some scenarios. The OP’s suggestion to simply make Steal F1 and Use F2 seems more than reasonable. Expanding beyond this may be a bit excessive.

Atherakhia.4086:

zaxon.6819:

i just dont see how its hard to burn the item you steal if you dont even want it by the time your next steal comes up.

Because it’s an inconvenience to burn useless skills in some scenarios. The OP’s suggestion to simply make Steal F1 and Use F2 seems more than reasonable. Expanding beyond this may be a bit excessive.

I was just thinking of pre-fight letting a thief set up a steal combo but with the traits associated with steal itself, I could see obvious abuse. So this is only about giving thief an F2 slot for stolen skills and leaving steal on its own button. I apologize for asking for anymore than a QoL improvement.

PopeUrban.2578:

DeWolfe.2174:

Or, at least give us a funny "Meh" vocal for our character as we toss aside stolen skills so we ckittene steal again.

+1 OP

That’s funny, but it makes me wonder:

What if f3 just discarded the stolen item and reduced the steal cooldown in stead? Kinda like how engineers can pack up turrets when they’re not tactically sound. This would mean you could use steal (and its associated traits) more often but not actually get more stolen items, which might actually open up some more viable all-tricks sorts of builds as a better thief support spec. (e.g. stealing reduces recharge on all traps or something)

Hm, if the recharge could be reduced I’d support increasing the base recharge slightly - stealing happens crazy often enough as it is, and those classes best shut down by Thieves (Mesmers & Eles) both give stolen skills that are very good in combat with them.

The basic idea of letting players discard stolen items (or get a second, less powerful stolen skill)? I’m in favour of this.

why the kitten Anet didn’t do this from the beginning?

Please make this happen

We just need to be able to discard the stolen item. Nothing more complicated than that is needed. It can’t be the hardest thing to implement. Put the function into the game and let thieves keybind it if they want to.

zaxon.6819:

i just dont see how its hard to burn the item you steal if you dont even want it by the time your next steal comes up.

In WvW, when I’m soloing, that valuable time being spend discarding instead of fighting. I’d agree on an F3 that removed the stolen item without an animation that slows my combat.

+1 for me. though i’d say if you steal again, it overwrites the previous stolen item.

BrunoBRS.5178:

+1 for me. though i’d say if you steal again, it overwrites the previous stolen item.

It’s kind of hard to determine which is better because maybe they stole an item they want but steal is now off cd and they want to hold onto that item still you know?

Its difficult to work around that without some serious keybinding options such as “steal” or “proc steal effects” kind of deal.

NinjaEd.3946:

BrunoBRS.5178:

+1 for me. though i’d say if you steal again, it overwrites the previous stolen item.

It’s kind of hard to determine which is better because maybe they stole an item they want but steal is now off cd and they want to hold onto that item still you know?

Its difficult to work around that without some serious keybinding options such as “steal” or “proc steal effects” kind of deal.

it’s a tradeoff. i think that keeps things more balanced and in line with the original thief style while at the same time letting us use steal without wasting time spending the item.

if we start letting the thief hoard strong bundles and throw away weak ones, then it’s just a hard buff to an already powerful profession skill.

BrunoBRS.5178:

NinjaEd.3946:

BrunoBRS.5178:

+1 for me. though i’d say if you steal again, it overwrites the previous stolen item.

It’s kind of hard to determine which is better because maybe they stole an item they want but steal is now off cd and they want to hold onto that item still you know?

Its difficult to work around that without some serious keybinding options such as “steal” or “proc steal effects” kind of deal.

it’s a tradeoff. i think that keeps things more balanced and in line with the original thief style while at the same time letting us use steal without wasting time spending the item.

if we start letting the thief hoard strong bundles and throw away weak ones, then it’s just a hard buff to an already powerful profession skill.

I’d say its more of a preparation and decision than a buff. Almost all steal skills are situational (kind of a problem imo). Letting them choose between item H vs item G it still comes down to active decisions, not a passive choice.

NinjaEd.3946:

BrunoBRS.5178:

NinjaEd.3946:

BrunoBRS.5178:

+1 for me. though i’d say if you steal again, it overwrites the previous stolen item.

It’s kind of hard to determine which is better because maybe they stole an item they want but steal is now off cd and they want to hold onto that item still you know?

Its difficult to work around that without some serious keybinding options such as “steal” or “proc steal effects” kind of deal.

it’s a tradeoff. i think that keeps things more balanced and in line with the original thief style while at the same time letting us use steal without wasting time spending the item.

if we start letting the thief hoard strong bundles and throw away weak ones, then it’s just a hard buff to an already powerful profession skill.

I’d say its more of a preparation and decision than a buff. Almost all steal skills are situational (kind of a problem imo). Letting them choose between item H vs item G it still comes down to active decisions, not a passive choice.

steal skills, as situational as they are, also happen to usually be extremely efficient against the character you stole from, when they’re not universally good (consume plasma, feathers for non-sword thieves, gunk for chaos armor/confusion, etc).

steal, by design, requires you to choose between having the stolen skill, or being able to teleport and steal another one. the problem that comes with that is that some skills are rather crappy to cancel when you just wanna teleport *cough*whirlingaxe*cough*, and even the shorter ones are still time you’re spending “throwing away” a skill so you can go back to use steal for your original purpose.

the option to steal without having to throw skills away is a buff in itself. a rather small one, that borders on quality of life, but still a buff. to keep steal as close as to what has been considered “balanced but strong” for two years now, i proposed that the game would “throw away” the stolen skill for you the moment you used steal again, thus saving the thief those precious seconds of inaction. that’s what this thread was about, right? “let thieves use steal without having to throw away useless items every time”, rather than “let thieves hoard strong items for future fights without losing access to steal”.

*hypothetical scenario 1: you steal from a necro, but the skull is kinda hard to use against someone midfight, and not particularly good on necro. you hold onto it, and keep fighting. eventually you win, or run away, or whatever. now stillness has just appeared, and you see 2-3 guys from the enemy team fighting 2 guys from yours. you precast skull and teleport in the middle of them, sending them all down those pits of no return. free stillness.

that scenario can be pulled off right now even without the proposed steal changes, but it’s important that it comes at the cost of a utility skill slot. with steal always being on demand with no drawback, the incentive to bring other shadowsteps is reduced.

Regardless, they couldn’t of gotten to that point without stealing from target X prior. It’s not a hat trick, its just saving the skill for the right time. Its no different from having a skill like skull fear but now you’re up against a warrior who has stability. You still may want to hold onto the skull fear until after his stability expires but you are also sitting there with steal off cooldown and maybe you need to steal(mug) to stay afloat or teleport to an outsider to avoid a hammer cc chain.

It’s a QoL buff at best. It’s not buffing any stolen skill or steal, it’s just letting the thief hold the stolen skill they have for when they need it while still having access to steal. I understand the it can be seen as a buff by giving them more options but right now we just toss most stolen skills because the situational effect is less attractive than the steal traits. Even if skill A is really good at a certain point, the time between getting skill A and then can often be long and you may not get option A for when you need it most. I still can’t pull skill A out of nowhere though, it did come from a previous encounter.

i don’t know, i always saw the skill thing as a tradeoff. you can either teleport, or you can keep your plasma for when that hammer warrior shows up. having both would eliminate that tradeoff (“i have to use my plasma beforehand, thus losing a few precious seconds of stability”).

it feels like the thread started asking for a hand, and then tried to go for the whole arm.

BrunoBRS.5178:

i don’t know, i always saw the skill thing as a tradeoff. you can either teleport, or you can keep your plasma for when that hammer warrior shows up. having both would eliminate that tradeoff (“i have to use my plasma beforehand, thus losing a few precious seconds of stability”).

it feels like the thread started asking for a hand, and then tried to go for the whole arm.

Whether F2 is replaced by the next steal or is not, it’s still a trade off. The original suggestion was aimed to split steal and the skill you steal to use them independently. That has not changed, I tossed the F3 idea because that was asking for the arm I was just thinking of pre fights instead of what the result would end up being with X2 stolen items and steal being separate. So ignoring that idea, this is just about splitting the activation of steal and the stolen item you gain.

If they steal knowing they already have an item in the F2 slot, then that’s their choice and the trade off is that stolen item might be handy for their current situation but they rather hold onto their current stolen item for the big moment. If F2 was replaced each successful steal then they might as well change nothing because you aren’t using steal as much as the traits associated with it. It doesn’t fix the issue where more times than not people are tossing the stolen skill out because it isn’t helpful at the time.

the benefit i see from the change is being able to use steal as a shadowstep without spending time throwing skills you don’t want away.

it keeps everything essentially the same, but it speeds up the “discarding” process, meaning if you’re the kind that doesn’t care about stolen items, you can just stick to stealing, and the game will throw away your old item when you steal again.

basically i’m asking for an improvement that virtually changes nothing balance-wise/strategy-wise.

BrunoBRS.5178:

the benefit i see from the change is being able to use steal as a shadowstep without spending time throwing skills you don’t want away.

it keeps everything essentially the same, but it speeds up the “discarding” process, meaning if you’re the kind that doesn’t care about stolen items, you can just stick to stealing, and the game will throw away your old item when you steal again.

basically i’m asking for an improvement that virtually changes nothing balance-wise/strategy-wise.

Neither one effects balance, it just gives thieves the option to discard their stolen item on their own terms, rather than having steal be in the way. I feel like we’re on the same page as far as splitting steal from stolen items, but if you have something in F2 already and the it is replaced by the next stolen item it really isn’t fixing the problem to the fullest. My aim is to solve it 100%, give thieves the choice on when they want to use up a stolen item.

There are no buffs being suggested to steal traits or stolen items or anything but giving us the option to use stolen items on our terms and let steal do its thing on its terms. It still comes with its share of trade offs because often the skills we get from stealing are meant to deal with that profession. Like I said though, skill A may not be what we want atm but knowing what lies ahead may be what we need at that time. If we choose to hold onto that stolen item, that means no other stolen abilities are being used up so it comes down to how they want to utilize them.

I would like it if I didn’t have to toss out a stolen skill before I could use steal again.
The cooldown activates the moment you use steal anyway, not when you use the stolen skill.
It’d be good to be able to see the cooldown timer all the time, and I mostly use steal for pre-casting pistol whip anyway.

Saving up a one time use skill that usually has no synergy with the play style is hardly game breaking, and if it bothers them that much just make it replace the old stolen skill with a new one.

Orbus.8473:

Saving up a one time use skill that usually has no synergy with the play style is hardly game breaking, and if it bothers them that much just make it replace the old stolen skill with a new one.

That is the issue I’ve been trying to bring across. I’ve made the post before of steal not being universally friendly to thieves, but a QoL fix such as this would help that out a lot without having to alter steal itself or any of its stolen skills.