Everything I talk about is wvw and pvp related.
If thieves want cleansing, they basically have to spec into stealth cleansing. This makes most non-stealth thief builds… useless. Things like pistol/pistol are heavily penalized because they can’t stealth reliably.
Just off the top of my head I thought of a trait for pistols that could be something like:
Grandmaster: Every 8th pistol strike cleanses a condition.
Just trying to brainstorm some ideas that would make more non-stealth thief builds viable. I’m very tired of being pigeon-holed into running stealth skills and traits just so I can sustain.
A… freaking… MEN! I have 2 thieves right now, one crit and one condition. I frankly can’t stand stealth trees on either of them (or stealth in general) yet I have to go stealth to get the ability to even go heads up with 1v1s or solo camps in WvW. I would prefer a class set that has a 2nd version of thief that focuses on manipulation of a target (stuns, immobilizes, shifts, teleporting the target places) that is non-stealth.
Hell, give us access even to a tree that gives MASSIVE cooldown to shifts and traps with even more immobilizes but no health. Even give us a trap that when triggered heals us (make that the heal). Or give us a trap that fears when triggered.
On that point too, talking about the other non-stealth feel of the class….
Stealth Fix:
-Stealth is now a camouflage skill giving you 70% transparency like in most FPS games.
- In this form add a declared chance (50%) to cause an opponent to miss, YET attack while you are in this stealth form. Still allow them to target you or even see you, but add the ability of a chance to miss. They can swing all they want then, they just need to know the miss chance is there too.
Combat:
- For damage or stealth triggered abilities, add a combo scaler to them. Upon first successful stealth and attack combo in 5 seconds, you get +10% damage (next one +25% damage, followed by +50% damage, up to the normal +100% or double damage).
This would work like…. Stealth > attack (3 second reveal timer). For combo timer to trigger for new ability or higher DPS, you must stealth within another 5 seconds. Upon that the timer resets to 3 second reveal after you attack. If you stealth again within 5 seconds of the reveal timer being done, then you get access to the Tier II, ect., ect… I hope that makes sense. This would negate a lot of the drama people have with HS spammers right now, nukes from stealth from thieves, and most thieves who enjoy playing for skill would like it more for the challenge. People would be more inclined to not complain at thief dps too, due to the fact that the initial stealth would be making it less potent.
You could then spec into a very interesting tree resulting in a few fun traits like….
- When a target misses an attack against you, they are blinded for their next attack.
- Increase your miss chance by 15% while in stealth.
- Going stealth also applies protection for 3 seconds (5 second cooldown).
- When attacking from stealth, there is a 5% chance the duration will not be interrupted.
- When you are hit for more than 20% of your health in one hit, your targets chance to miss is increased to 100% for 5 seconds (60 second cooldown). (Make it like the warrior block chain, or engi shield skill, or the guardian heal combo.)
- When you are stealthed, gain toughness (180 max toughness at level 80).
- When you attack from stealth, your next attack is unblockable (15 second cooldown).
- If you are hit while you are stealthed, your attacker is weakened for 15 seconds and blinded (60 second cooldown).
- REWORK SIGIL OF SHADOWS – On activation grants 15 seconds of swiftness. Passive—Take 10% less damage from successful attacks while stealthed.
- NEW HEAL [Sheltering Shroud] – Heal for X amount (self) and allies for X (.4 of original X) in 250 radius. You gain protection for 7 seconds your enemies are blinded. This skill protects allies in a radius of 250 for 3 seconds if you are already stealthed upon activation.
- One more fun trait … Critical hits from stealth reduce your reveal timer by 2 seconds (10 second cooldown).
If they did this along with an increase in the base health pool, I would FREAKING LOVE my thief again. They might not simply be insta-hated too :/
More fun ones too, haha. Anyways, all that being said, I truly think that a rework of stealth to be more of a “shroud” with a chance to miss, would work MUCH better than the current system… for both sides of the spectrum.