Guild Wars 2

Suggestions are frequent in any game. Everyone thinks their idea is the best and really significant. Obviously the dev team doesn’t get most of these messages, though, and a lot of the suggestions are often game-breaking or stand against the vision of the developers.

I’m proposing a change that I believe benefits a large group of players, adds diversity to the game, makes the thief much more viable in general as a class, and does so with significantly less implementation than other similar ideas.

The suggestion is simple: Give thieves the option to use longbows.

While the discussion about giving rifles to thieves is nothing new, and subsequently viewed as being a more prominent suggestion, I’ll need to support ANet’s decisions about the subject; the rifle is not an appropriate weapon for the thief for various thematic reasons, as mentioned below. Subsquently, I believe such implementation would resolve many issues pertaining to ranger discussion, also mentioned below.

So, why do thieves deserve a longbow?

1.)
For one, thieves have some of the lowest kit diversity in the game. While having more weapon combinations than Engineers and Elementalists, we are tied with Mesmers and Necromancers. While not inherently a problem, the other classes have much more diverse class mechanics which allow split-second changes to style of play to support fewer number of weapon skills/combinations. The thief, left with steal, and designed around the principle of being an improviser, should carry just as many tricks as the other classes. As it stands, thieves, in their current state, are predictable, avoidable, out-damaged, out-tanked, and overall out-done in various aspects by most other classes. This especially applies to ranged combat, where magic-wielding classes have an inherent advantage after the shortbow range nerfs.

2.)
Simply, the thief has problems in WvW, especially when it comes to both attacking and holding keeps and towers. Auto-attacks with the shortbow get blocked by the lips on towers due to the thief’s shortbow animation’s abrupt arrow fall-off, resulting in the undesired cluster-bomb spam. With a long-range alternative to compete against super-long-range casters such as Necros and Elementalists, or even damage the Veteran Archers while at an angle from below them, the thief could see significantly increased zerg viability, and subsequently, more viability in general.

3.)
There is no “archer” archetype in GW2.
This is where rangers come into play. The ranger community is vastly torn on on this issue, and ANet has recently announced that there are no plans to allow the pet mechanic to be optional in place of better damage despite sacrificing utility. Thus, a HUGE population of players are upset, and giving them another medium/light-armor/squishy DPS archer, as per the style in many games which people absolutely adore, is something that both increases build diversity for thieves, and gives archers a true home to play and thrive in.

4.)
The thief is adaptable. Unlike many other trait lines, the thief’s are not very specific. I believe that the thief traits are some of the best-executed in the game, as there are so many viable builds and styles which do not have a heavy emphasis on particular weapon paradigms. A thief can run the same build running D/D, S/D, S/P, or shortbow, and have all of his traits work just as well. Thus, instead of re-tooling the ranger in its entirety in order to appease archers, the thief makes an excellent candidate to receive this weapon. Additionally, since the weapon is two-handed only, it places thieves on the same weapon-combination count as rangers.

5.)
The longbow works excellently with the thief’s theme. While many argue that since thieves can use pistols, and should thus “snipe” with rifles, I disagree. Rifles are loud, clunky, and simply, based on their art aside from The Predator, just not fitting for a rogue/thug-style class. While many people who have no real-life archery experience claim that longbows are just as clunky and unfitting, they are incorrect, and the art, almost entirely, fits thief style extremely well. Bows are quiet, maneuverable, and require dexterity to use; something that thieves take pride in exceeding in.

6.)
Long-range damage-dealers that can stealth in medium armor might seem like an issue at first glance, however the ranger has been made similarly. The rework to #3 on their longbow to become a stealth skill definitely insinuates that there are no problems with stealth and ranged combat. This especially applies to thieves, who have the lowest HP pool of all classes in the game, and some of the worst returns for building into toughness/vitality lines, further punishing the class. Plus, if longbow does not have a stealth, blind, or mobility skill, this places thieves into a position of needing to choose their weapons carefully in order to predict the situations they will face as to avoid death.

7.)
New weapons need not be developed just for this occasion. All that needs to be done is create new weapon skills which play well for the thief, rather than re-tooling entire trait trees or re-doing class mechanics.

8.)
Shortbows emphasize AOE’s. Aside from pistols, which are a skirmishing weapon, the thief has no means of pulling mobs, or simply hitting a single target from a fair distance.

Thoughts/concerns, and support is welcome. While I don’t have high hopes for this idea due to the fact ANet gets a ton of suggestions every day, and therefore cannot look into all of them, increased discussion and popularity may just do something about the issues which would be resolved by this implementation.

just fix what we have already..-_-

agree with cynz.

1. Remember, everyone whose not a thief views the entire thief community as trollish jerks. Thieves are widely viewed as skilless baddy griefing smack talkers in the same way that warriors are viewed by non warriors as mentally handicapped. And stereotypes exist for a reason; they are true to a certain frequency.

2. As much as rangers are furious that they are stuck with the poorest implementation of pets in any MMO in the last decade (thanks Obama Anet), and lack luster ranged weapons, they would be hugely furious to see their archetype given to someone else, especially the most hated class in the game.

How bout we fix the problem: Make pets not suck and give rangers more interesting ranged combat options. For thieves, make dual pistols not suck and give them more interesting ranged combat options.

I’m still for rifle.

Raven.9603:

agree with cynz.

1. Remember, everyone whose not a thief views the entire thief community as trollish jerks. Thieves are widely viewed as skilless baddy griefing smack talkers in the same way that warriors are viewed by non warriors as mentally handicapped. And stereotypes exist for a reason; they are true to a certain frequency.

2. As much as rangers are furious that they are stuck with the poorest implementation of pets in any MMO in the last decade (thanks Obama Anet), and lack luster ranged weapons, they would be hugely furious to see their archetype given to someone else, especially the most hated class in the game.

How bout we fix the problem: Make pets not suck and give rangers more interesting ranged combat options. For thieves, make dual pistols not suck and give them more interesting ranged combat options.

Unfortunately Jon Peters has publicly announced these changes will never happen. That’s why I’m making the suggestion; it actually gives players the archetype as an option on some level than none at all.

DeceiverX.8361:

Raven.9603:

How bout we fix the problem: Make pets not suck and give rangers more interesting ranged combat options. For thieves, make dual pistols not suck and give them more interesting ranged combat options.

Unfortunately Jon Peters has publicly announced these changes will never happen. That’s why I’m making the suggestion; it actually gives players the archetype as an option on some level than none at all.

Where? Link? He really said they’d never make ranger pets and dual pistol thieves viable?

Pertaining to not addressing pets any time soon (if ever):
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/December-10th-Ranger-changes/page/8#post3162139

Much discussion ensued about the issue. It’s not happening even remotely soon.

Livestream I do believe mentions pets are the class mechanic and have no plans on being removed or removable to make the archer playstyle exist (Okay, so this isn’t JP). If not the case, I’ll go digging later on. I know it’s been said somewhere.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Developer-livestream-Ranger-PvE-guide/first

As far as P/P thieves go, I shouldn’t say it’ll never happen, but let’s be serious, based on the past patching and future vision for thieves, I think that states enough that the build will not be altered.

I don’t see what you mean by “more interesting ranged combat options.” Doesn’t this simply imply new builds/weapon sets which accommodate for more interesting play options? Does the suggestion for the longbow not accomplish this by providinng both more and more interesting ranged combat options, while also giving archer players a class to play?

If “fixing” was so easy for them to do, then they’d just do it. Clearly, they care more about new implementations than class overhauls, hence my eight arguments as to why this option appeases everyone to some extent.