2nd Elite Spec Concept - The Stalker (Rifle)

2nd Elite Spec Concept - The Stalker (Rifle)

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Posted by: Auesis.7301

Auesis.7301

This is a culmination of a few ideas I’ve had myself about other specs in the past plus ideas from these forums. In particular I want to thank Zacchary for some ideas on Rifle. Feedback is welcome! Numbers can be ignored, threw in random placeholders essentially.

The Stalker is a heavily single-target focused Elite Specialisation that can deliver extreme punishment from a distance, its highest asset being its ability to magically enforce targets for execution by allies. They take full advantage of situations where they are not being directly targeted, and can enforce that situation when making their escapes. They gain access to Rifle and Stance skills, and their Steal becomes a new technique called Mark.

Mark

Place a magical imprint, marking your target for execution and impairing their escape. Your mark is highlighted on the mini-map for allies. Attacks on your mark charge Execute. Steal effects are applied on your next attack eg. Mug.

Cannot remove Chill or Cripple
Teleports Fail
Range: 1,500
Marked for Execution (stacking debuff up to 25)
Duration: 10s

Execute

Activate your mark.
After a small delay, it detonates, dealing more damage for attacks previously made against them.

Damage: some number
Bonus damage per stack: 10% in PvE, 1% in PvP
Range: 1,500

Rifle Skills:

1) Deliberate Shot (slow)

Shoot your target, piercing foes. Deal more damage if you hit your selected target first.
Restore initiative if your target is Vulnerable.

Damage: some large number
Bonus damage: 10%
Initiative gain: 1
Initiative gain cooldown: 2s
Pierces
Range: 1,500

Stealth 1) Suppressing Fire

Ambush your foe with rapid fire, dazing them from the concussion of each shot.

Damage (x12): some number
Daze: 1/4s
Range: 1,500

2) Elusive Shot (initiative cost 4)

Strafe quickly to the side while firing, forcing foes to drop their target on you.

Damage: some number
Evade: 1/2s
Range: 1,500

3) Focus Fire (initiative cost 4)

Deliver powerful shots that make your target Vulnerable.

Damage (4x): some number
Vulnerability (2)
Range: 1,500

4) Backup Plan (initiative cost 3)

Set an escape point.

Backup Plan (20s): Use Escape to shadowstep to your Backup Plan location

-> Escape (initiative cost 7)

Shadowstep to your Backup Plan location, cloaking yourself.

Stealth: 2s
Range: 1,500

5) Aim (4 + 2 initiative/second)

Cancel Stealth, movement and initiative regeneration to concentrate. Aim at your target. Deal more damage with Snipe the longer you cast Aim.

Revealed: 1s
Aim (stacking buff): Snipe deals more damage.
Interval: 1s

-> Snipe

Take your aimed shot, piercing all defenses.

Damage: some big number
Bonus damage from Aim: 15% per stack
Unblockable
Pierces

Gnome Child [Gc]
Resident Thief

(edited by Auesis.7301)

2nd Elite Spec Concept - The Stalker (Rifle)

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Posted by: Auesis.7301

Auesis.7301

Utility skills: Stances

Heal) Dark Escape (25s CD)

Heal a small amount and gain Super Speed. Heal for more based on how far you move from your original location.

Healing: some small number
Distance threshold: some medium number
Distance threshold: some medium number
Distance threshold: some large number
Super Speed: 5s

Utility 1) Deadly Paradox (20s CD)

Regenerate Initiative at a massively increased rate, disabling your auto attacks.

Initiative regeneration: 400%
Duration: 6s

Utility 2) Shadow’s Reflex (50s CD)

Evade attacks. If a foe disables you in the duration, you briefly evade the next few attacks.

Evade: 1s
Breaks stun
Evade: 2s
Duration: 8s

Utility 3) Malicious Abrasion (50s CD)

Gain increased critical hit chance. When you critically hit, remove a boon.

Critical hit chance increase: 25%
Boons removed: 1
Duration: 6s

Utility 4) Unseen Fury (40s CD)

Perodically blind targets around you while gaining immunity to blind. Blinded foes cannot block you.

Blind: 2s
Interval: 1s
Unseen Fury (8s): Unblockable while targets are blind.

Elite: Bewildering Stride (60s CD)

Gain Protection. You drop target and cannot be directly targeted while moving.

Duration: 8s

Gnome Child [Gc]
Resident Thief

2nd Elite Spec Concept - The Stalker (Rifle)

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Posted by: Auesis.7301

Auesis.7301

Traits:

Minor

Stalker Training
Your Steal ability becomes Mark and Execute. Gain access to Rifle and Stance skills.

Hit and Run
Gain increased movement speed. Increased initiative regeneration while moving.

Movement speed increase: 25%
Initiative regeneration: 25%

Seize the Moment
Deal more damage to foes that are not directly targeting you, and take less damage from attacks that are not directly targeting you.

Damage increase: 10%
Damage reduced: 15%

Adept

Sabotage
Deal Vulnerability to targets that you are flanking.

Vulnerability (8s)

Jeopardy’s Redirection
Transfer conditions from yourself to your foe when you Mark them.

Conditions transferred: 2

Corrosive Detonation
Execute removes boons based on how many stacks were accumulated.

Boons removed: 1
Stack Threshold: 5

Master

Perfect Form
Stances recharge faster. Activate Shadow’s Reflex when disabled.

Recharge reduced: 20%

Expert Marksmanship
Deal more damage based on distance. Aim costs less initiative.

Initiative cost reduction: 1
Damage increase at 0-900 distance: 5%
Damage increased above 900 distance: 10%

Acute Awareness
When you force foes to drop target on you, gain Stability.

Stability (5s)

Grandmaster

Weakness Exploitation
When you hit a foe with Vulnerability, gain Might.

1 Might (15s)

Marked for Death
Mark lasts longer. Foes affected by Mark take increased damage from all sources.

Damage Increase: 10%
Duration Increase: 33%

Plan B
Shadowstep skills have increased distance.

Distance increase: 300

Gnome Child [Gc]
Resident Thief

(edited by Auesis.7301)

2nd Elite Spec Concept - The Stalker (Rifle)

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Posted by: DeceiverX.8361

DeceiverX.8361

Unfortunately, despite the Dragonhunter existing, I still believe that a long-range stealth-based nuking “snipe” build shouldn’t be able to exist, particularly at 1500 base range. It seems particularly broken, especially when considering the thief’s other existing damage modifiers. Shadow Rejuv would probably also cause some major conflicts with the Aim//Snipe mechanic, for it’d allow for some substantial overcharging of Aim, causing even a medium-damage attack to deal what is likely astronomical amounts of damage. With Expert Marksmanship, it’d yield potential for infinite charging while stealthed. That’s a bit problematic considering effects like SR give substantial stealth durations and would allow for scaling to get way out of control. Consequently, these types of adjustments would only really help the class function in WvW roaming than in sPvP, where is where the class is truly at a loss at the moment due to the lack of skirmishing and supportive options it has compared to the rest.

The rest of the kit also looks way overtuned; initiative refund on the auto offers way too much synergy with Sundering Strikes. Suppressing fire would strip stability rom anything, and a 12x daze lock is completely bonkers. Chaining this with Deadly Paradox would pretty much make the thief unbeatable in any 1v1 situation. Bewildering stride would also pretty much make the thief immune to a large portion of other attacks an effects for its duration.

Overall, the spec looks way too overpowered in almost every way. I’ll give you that the rest of the stances are creative, but if Reflex is meant to increase in duration, that’s just silly OP, and duration-giving unblockable effects on such a DPS/burst-based spec is too punishing to guardians not building full tank at that point.

I have a rifle elite spec idea developing but have been cut off from time to really polish it out.

(edited by DeceiverX.8361)

2nd Elite Spec Concept - The Stalker (Rifle)

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Posted by: Auesis.7301

Auesis.7301

Edited in that initiative regeneration completely stops while using Aim, as was the original intention. Thanks for pointing it out, because that would of course be broken. Also forgot to put in that it is meant to pulse Revealed, so you cannot use it in Stealth.

As for Shadow’s Reflex, this is meant to operate like Last Stand in the sense that it has a separate CD to the true skill, which goes past 90+ seconds compared to the true 40s counterpart.

Also edited in to ignore numbers. Cooldowns, effect durations, that sort of thing, are just placeholders, random numbers I have thrown in for the sake of tooltip descriptions. Think of only the concept level.

Thanks for the input, however.

Gnome Child [Gc]
Resident Thief

(edited by Auesis.7301)

2nd Elite Spec Concept - The Stalker (Rifle)

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Posted by: Ghotistyx.6942

Ghotistyx.6942

1500 range? How about no.
Ini regen every 2 seconds on auto? Let’s not.
Self-stacking 25 might for forever duration? Nah.
Plan B should be aborted

I do like the Mark concept though. Honestly, Rifle Thief seems like it should be a Sniper based spec, but I wouldn’t want to see it. Longbow with Mark would be preferred. Instead, Rifle ought to be a ranged condition damage spec with access to Burning. Thoughts coming to mind involve inflicting Burn when striking a blinded foe, synergy around smoke fields, shotgun styled weapon skills, possibly with Gadgets as the utility. It would be an almost SWAT-like spec.

Fishsticks

2nd Elite Spec Concept - The Stalker (Rifle)

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Posted by: yolo swaggins.2570

yolo swaggins.2570

1500 range? How about no.
Ini regen every 2 seconds on auto? Let’s not.
Self-stacking 25 might for forever duration? Nah.
Plan B should be aborted

I do like the Mark concept though. Honestly, Rifle Thief seems like it should be a Sniper based spec, but I wouldn’t want to see it. Longbow with Mark would be preferred. Instead, Rifle ought to be a ranged condition damage spec with access to Burning. Thoughts coming to mind involve inflicting Burn when striking a blinded foe, synergy around smoke fields, shotgun styled weapon skills, possibly with Gadgets as the utility. It would be an almost SWAT-like spec.

It would not make sense as a condition weapon unless you were thinking about basing it off of Engineer’s rifle.

Liaison for [Teef]
“Please stop complaining about stuff you don’t even know about.” ~Nocta

2nd Elite Spec Concept - The Stalker (Rifle)

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Posted by: DeceiverX.8361

DeceiverX.8361

Disagree with both of you.

The rifle should be the first supportive weapon for the thief not featuring high damage or stealth attacks, and its specialization should focus heavily on the revealed mechanic.

We’re talking guns here. Loud, big, and not at all stealthy. The theme should be built around this. What better way than to start working with the other side to stealth: revealed. We’ve already seen some of this with Revealed Training, and revealed becoming a more common effect could make such a specialization highly useful. Why not extrapolate this more and promote self-reveal more when given bonus effects or abilities? This could leave some nice interplay with both non-stealth and stealth attack builds, and gives a lot of opportunity to inflict this effect to the thief himself and change the way this effect may work.

From a game balance point of view, the rifle should bring to the table lots of attacks to the vitals, disablement, and an element of surprise and ranged control that lets you support from a distance due to the class’s innate lack of durability while offering supportive fire to your allies while prepared to slip out of a fight if things get bad, as per thief style. The rifle should take on a blend of engineer-style gadgets and the thief’s preparedness to allow for a diverse set of abilities while not promoting super-cheese mega-deeps or burst like what is currently on the DH or revenant, but while keeping the feel of the nimble and quick gameplay the thief brings, and fully allowing the utilization of initiative to apply a variety of on-demand disabling effects to really lock down your target. I think we can all agree the DH and Rev right now doing what they’re doing are overpowered and not fun to play as nor against. I don’t want to see the thief end up this way with a rifle that just one-shots people or offers way too much sustained damage that’s unhealthy, and the initiative mechanic and ranged weapons make this very difficult to balance without making it result to what vault spam is for the Daredevil in terms of skill : damage viability.

I’m hoping to push out my comprehensive suggestion for the next elite specialization featuring the rifle in the next few weeks after my schedule calms down and I have more time to develop proper solutions to the last-minute holes I need to fill. Do not worry, though. The spec offers lots of damage capability, but not in the way you might be thinking. I plan on converging a few class mechanics that will offer a balanced and unique ways (and totally B.A.) way to play the first 1200-ranged-capable thief since the nerfs to shortbow.

(edited by DeceiverX.8361)

2nd Elite Spec Concept - The Stalker (Rifle)

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Posted by: Ghotistyx.6942

Ghotistyx.6942

It would not make sense as a condition weapon unless you were thinking about basing it off of Engineer’s rifle.

It’s a new weapon. It can be anything your mind desires that isn’t already covered by a current weapon.

Disagree with both of you.

The rifle should be the first supportive weapon for the thief not featuring high damage or stealth attacks, and its specialization should focus heavily on the revealed mechanic.

Nothing you’ve mentioned necessarily conflicts with what I suggested. Being revealed could definitely be a theme of a proposed condition/gadget Thief spec.

Fishsticks