Guild Wars 2

UPDATED FOR CLARITY!

I know I am not the only (ex) thief out there who does not like this mechanic’s implimentation. I mean its the only reason why the thief is called a thief. With traits, it does ALOT for one button press however that is all it does. Looking at the big picture, Stealing is only there so the thief looks like a thief because… well… a thief isn’t a thief unless it steals some ****, right? Most thieves consider Initiative to be the main thief mechanic anyways since it ties in with everything a thief can do. Which is why I present to you…

Stealing REVAMPED

F1, F2, F3, F4: Steal. When successful, Steal is replaced with a stolen item. The rest of the steal slots are put on a short cooldown (5s) to prevent spamming. When a stolen item is used, the slot reverts to Steal and then placed on a longer cooldown (35s). Every other slot is placed on a short cooldown (5s). Maximum items stolen: 4.

Stolen Items
These vary depending on the target. However the item that is stolen is usually a modified version of one of their attacks. Stolen Items are as followed:

Warrior – Weapon Set: Equip the weapon set you just stole. Attacks are modified and get put on cooldown instead of using initiative. Lasts for 10 attacks before they break.

Alt.) Throw Set: Hold Weapon Set to throw weapons at the target and heavily inflict them with crippling conditions. Single use.

Necro – Dead Ritual: Create an aura that can mimic Wells, Corruption, Minion Summoning or Marks. Single use. Usually Condition inflicting AoE.

Elementalist – Crystal Arcana: Create a lasting (10s) combo field based on the elementalist’s attunement. Ground targeting AoE. Single use.

Alt.) Elemental Weapons: While Crystal Arcana remains in your pocket, you have a 20% chance on crit to cause certain conditions. Conditions are based on attunement.

Mesmer – Mind Veil: Produce a variety of effects ranging from invisibility to clones and many more. Single Use.

Alt.) Double Team: Hold to charge. Create a perfect copy (killable companion) of yourself when completely charged. Charge 8s. Max copies: 1. Single use.

Engineer – Toolbox: Use a stolen kit. Each attack has a chance of breaking the kit.

Alt.) Hack: Hold to charge. Take control of an enemy’s environmental item. Charge 10s. Single use.

Thief – Extra Gear: Steal becomes one of the target thief’s equipped utility skills. Has unlimited uses. (can’t slot the same skills)

Alt.) Discard: Hold down for 3 seconds to discard the gear and free up the slot.

Guardian – Light Arcana: Sear a symbol into the ground at your feet and produce supportive effects to you and your allies. Stolen Symbol is random.

Alt.) Inner Fire: 20% chance to gain a boon on crit. Boon is based off of symbol stolen.

Ranger – (no idea for this one)

Zacchary.6183:

Looking at the big picture, Stealing is only there so the thief looks like a thief because… well… a thief isn’t a thief unless it steals some ****, right?

lol’d

Zacchary.6183:

Thief – Extra Gear: Steal becomes one of the target thief’s equipped utility skills. Has unlimited uses.

Alt.) Discard: Hold down for 3 seconds to discard the gear and free up the slot.

Unlimited uses? So basically I could fill all 4 slots with Thief utilities and have a Thief with a total of 7 utility skills?

Because that’s broken as hell.

Elementalist – Crystal Arcana: Create a lasting combo field based on the elementalist’s attunement. Ground targeting AoE. Single use.

What is a “lasting combo field”? Please don’t tell me you mean a permanent combo field, because that would be ridiculously OP.

Olba.5376:

Zacchary.6183:

Thief – Extra Gear: Steal becomes one of the target thief’s equipped utility skills. Has unlimited uses.

Alt.) Discard: Hold down for 3 seconds to discard the gear and free up the slot.

Unlimited uses? So basically I could fill all 4 slots with Thief utilities and have a Thief with a total of 7 utility skills?

Because that’s broken as hell.

Elementalist – Crystal Arcana: Create a lasting combo field based on the elementalist’s attunement. Ground targeting AoE. Single use.

What is a “lasting combo field”? Please don’t tell me you mean a permanent combo field, because that would be ridiculously OP.

Anything that is good for a thief is OP, according to the community.

Okay, first, I think it’s definitely important to specify how long this short cooldown will be. Just that determines pretty much if this is a good idea or not. That being said, I’m going to assume short cooldown to prevent spam means something like 5 seconds.

Putting the stolen skills aside, here’s how I predict this would play out:
x/d thief: LOL 4 shadow steps geegee newb.
SOF thief: so ur tellin’ me I got 4 interrupts and that the first one will cd by the time I use the 4th one?
BT thief: what’s that? You have a boon? lol nope, ill just add it to my ridiculous pool of vigor.
HT thief: Hooray 4 extra stealth skills!
Mug thief: ahahaha now I have 5 heal skills!
Improv thief: W00T No more cooldowns!

Accounting for the stolen skills:
Warrior: Have fun being crippled for life
Necro: Sorry man, lemme just go ahead and turn your signet of spite into signet of all boons
Elementalist: Lasting water field? That’s a funny way to say perma regen and HS for full heal
Mesmer: Yay moar target independent stealth skills
Engineer: who’s got more caltrops, a pull, confusion, and a BLOCK skill? this guy!
Thief: yay! 4 more Refuges/Shadow steps!
Gaurdian: Oh you actually wanted to HIT me? I thought you just wanted to kill yourself to my infinite retaliation.

I think that some of the stolen skill ideas are good, like the Eles, Mesmers, and the Gaurdian, (Thief, Warr, and Engi are definitely a no-no though) However become OP with the addition of FOUR slots. Four just seems a little over the top to me regardless of how that would effect already present steal tactics. Which is why I must agree with the non-thief community on this one, in the sense that it’s OP

There. I clarified everything. You guys happy now?

Zacchary.6183:

Thief – Extra Gear: Steal becomes one of the target thief’s equipped utility skills. Has unlimited uses.

At a first glance that seems OP, but if you think about it…. :/ you will be stealing kitten you already have (more then likely)….
None of this will get through anyways… like you said anything thats good for the thief is OP….
It’s easier to ask for buffs for other class, like guardian or warrior… and then re-roll :P….
Please give warriors stealth!

Zacchary.6183:

Ranger – (no idea for this one)

Plant an eco-friendly tree.

Zacchary.6183:

There. I clarified everything. You guys happy now?

Noooooooo… 5s is what I based my initial argument around and therefore still stands!

Well my second argument still stands. No matter what anyone suggests, players will kitten about it and complain that it’s OP when there are warriors that have access to 50% crit chance, plenty of 10%+ damage traits, good stat increasing traits and have utilities up the * that have WAY more use than what thieves have.

Fact is: Everyone wants thieves to stay still so they can 1-hit them. And because of it anything that would give thieves any form of viability will be called OP.

So no offense, I really don’t care if you think it’s OP unless you think you have a better idea.

Zacchary.6183:

Well my second argument still stands. No matter what anyone suggests, players will kitten about it and complain that it’s OP when there are warriors that have access to 50% crit chance, plenty of 10%+ damage traits, good stat increasing traits and have utilities up the * that have WAY more use than what thieves have.

Fact is: Everyone wants thieves to stay still so they can 1-hit them. And because of it anything that would give thieves any form of viability will be called OP.

So no offense, I really don’t care if you think it’s OP unless you think you have a better idea.

Your suggestion is just too much utility.

Your notion that the thief needs group utility is agreed upon, but this method is just too much. We currently have very little access to group utility (venomshare is in a bad place, thrill of the crime is pretty much our only offensive boon share, and we have 0 access to defensive boons, and stealth is very very subjective). Beyond boons we simply don’t bring that much to groups (mediocre aoe damage, high melee damage but low survivability).

My “Better Solution” as you call it would be to simply tweak the numbers on the class (higher base HP, armor to make up for being in melee 24/7) and give us some group utility of some kind. I’d love a unique brand of utility (like mesmer portals or warrior warbanners) but that may be too large a swing for a patch. Small steps, like accessible defensive or offensive boon sharing would be great.

Well first I’d like to point out I AM and ONLY am a thief.

Anyways, I don’t think your idea is entirely bad, the only thing that troubles me is that fact that this proposes giving us access to 4 independent steals. So combine that with steal related traits you got yourself a wind a little to strong to stand up to.

So, my better idea that you requested is as follows: YES revamp the stolen bundles, as most of them are useless with the exception of the warrior and thief steals, but retain only one steal slot.

Lets say for instance I am a d/d thief fighting a d/d ele:
The first thing I’d do is immediately steal to them to backstab, gaining a lasting fire field. Now I do this 3 more times for each of the 4 attunements. At this point I have a fire, water, lightning, and smoke (seeing as there is no closer earth combo field) lasting fields available. Id throw all 4 down, and can now use SB to easily stack might, water to heal considerably with each HS, lightning to DAZE with each HS, and smoke to stealth. So even if they manage to hit me against the many dazes, I would be able to simply full heal by HS’ing the water field a few times.

Actually you cant overlap them and get all of the effects. The last one placed is the one you get I believe.

Another thing you need to understand that to get all 4 attunements you have to steal as the ele cycles through the attunements. Same this with everything else. You can’t steal it if they don’t have it on them.

I meant to imply I’d leave gaps between each so I can alternate >.>

Yea I do understand that too, D/D eles swap attunements a lot actually and if you run into ones that just auto attack on one of them everywhere then they probably don’t know what they’re doing…

Just please for the love of god make the stolen item from engies actually useful for fighting engies, like a condi cleanse elixir or something. I feel like I’m worse off after stealing because I gotta unload that gunk somewhere before I can steal again

This idea is actually not that terrible. But, I do not like how all of the half decent stolen items were changed.

The mesmer steal has stability, therefore it is actually good for the thief to have.

The warrior steal is also good for a thief to have, missile reflect and on a immobilized target, can do a lot of damage.

Necro steal is a fear, that steal helps so much in killing necros, and getting decaps in spvp.

Ranger steal should just stay the same, I don’t really see thieves killing condi rangers or spirit rangers without a water field.

That ele steal passive is way to strong. 20% crit permanently (considering the thief never uses it) is way to strong, maybe get a boon based on their attunement, and a combo field.

I don’t even need to say anything about that thief stolen item.

The idea that thieves could steal multiple times and have 4 different stolen items sounds great but keep the same stolen items. Most of those are too strong or don’t do enough to matter.

Ok, ignored…

Steal

CD: 30 Sec.
Cast Time: Instant

Interrupt your target, F1 changes to whatever skill you interrupted. Unblockable.
If you do not interrupt a skill, then CD is halved.

Give me F1-F2-F3-F4 different skills with anything you want Anet and give me more boons like protection on stealth like it used to be,why not stability also . The lighter the class’s armor the more the boons it has access to.
Give me more weapon sets like Rifle, off-hand sword or anything else.
Make a five man group of thieves or any medium or light armor classes equal five man group of guardians or warriors as far as boons granted is concerned . We still have the handicap of armor and hit points.

I’d say just improving some of the items you can steal right now is enough. Steal becomes incredibly potent with some trait investment (just like most F abilities of other classes need investment also). Right now, just the elementalist and engineer items are bordering useless. All other items range from ok to great.

If they revamp steal I’ll be so mad… We’ve had mods come onto the ranger forum and say “we know the pet AI is rubbish but we arent going to fix it. kthxbai”, so if they find time to fix the thieves class mechanic, when its not even broken, but not ours… That will really take the biscuit.

But then I wouldnt be surprised so.. good luck asking :P

Cygnus.6903:

I’d say just improving some of the items you can steal right now is enough. Steal becomes incredibly potent with some trait investment (just like most F abilities of other classes need investment also). Right now, just the elementalist and engineer items are bordering useless. All other items range from ok to great.

That’s another thing that kitten es me off about it. You can trait heavily for it and it becomes this 1 button that does everything. Its like signets and venoms: they suck because they don’t do much by themselves, but holy kitten if you use every trait for it!

I think you should be able to de-weaponize people. That would be really cool. OP, but cool. Just come up take their greatsword, throw it away, then wail on their defencess body.

Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve always thought that the thief’s steal skill was actually perfect as it was.

I’d rather see changes to P/P and nerfs to warr as well as a few changes to past thief nerfs tbh

Zacchary.6183:

Cygnus.6903:

I’d say just improving some of the items you can steal right now is enough. Steal becomes incredibly potent with some trait investment (just like most F abilities of other classes need investment also). Right now, just the elementalist and engineer items are bordering useless. All other items range from ok to great.

That’s another thing that kitten es me off about it. You can trait heavily for it and it becomes this 1 button that does everything. Its like signets and venoms: they suck because they don’t do much by themselves, but holy kitten if you use every trait for it!

I would have to agree with Cygnus there, improving existing steal skill would be very nice of them, maybe provide a set of skills that can be stolen per class (then again, it will be somewhat random… and we all know RNG).
Asking for a rework…. I really doubt they will ever listen. Not to mention buffing something they’re attempting to slowly and gradually nerf to the ground would go against the progress they made thus far. Ha! they could rework it…. make it less useful, i can see that happening.

I’m fine with how steal works now. Like Arganthium said, let’s hope Anet makes all our weapon sets usable rather then messing with something that already works (Read: this whole initiative change Dec 10th).

Steal
CD: 30 Sec.
Cast Time: Instant
Interrupt your target, F1 changes to whatever skill you interrupted. Unblockable.
If you do not interrupt a skill, then CD is halved.

Edit: Alternatively, instead of changing to exactly the same skill as you interrupt, Steal could change to a very similar, but Thief themed skill based on the skill you interrupt.

Examples: Interrupt an Ele’s Fireball, and you get a Fiery Throwing Knife – Interrupt Guardian’s Flashing Blade, and you get a Reflecting Blade – each skill you get would be thematically based upon the skill you Steal from them, and it’s level of power would be tied to your own stats.
The drawback to this method – for Anet, not us – is that Anet would have a lot of work to do creating an alternate Stolen version of every skill in the game.
Would be tons of fun however.

Well…how awesome that idea may sound, Steal would be very strong and we know Arenanet + the rest of the community can’t handle that kind of awesomesauce.

I’d like to see
F1: Steal, base cooldown of 20 seconds (20 seconds so you can actually…you know….steal more often if you trait for it? Kind of honoring the button the class is named after…afterall :P)

F2: Will be the first skill you stole
F3: Will be the second skill you stole
F4: Will be the third skill you stole

All skills you steal will stay on the thief untill that thief goes into downed state or travels to another zone. If you use a waypoint in the same zone, the items should still be in your F2-4 slots.
If you steal again while having all your slots full, it overrides the oldest skill, so the F2 slot.

Also, rework P/P for sure….PWEASE xD

Zacchary.6183:

Stealing REVAMPED

F1, F2, F3, F4: Steal. When successful, Steal is replaced with a stolen item. The rest of the steal slots are put on a short cooldown (5s) to prevent spamming. When a stolen item is used, the slot reverts to Steal and then placed on a longer cooldown (35s). Every other slot is placed on a short cooldown (5s). Maximum items stolen: 4.

I like it — but NO! Stealing every 5s for each slot will trigger Init-gain, Mug, Thrill, Sleight, etc

B-R-O-K-E-N!!!

I won’t even bother commenting on the stolen items…it’s just wrong.