Guild Wars 2

So we are now the only class in this game who can’t get 1200 range (including traits) due to the recent nerf to cluster-bomb making it 900 range.

So I thought we could post idea’s how ANet could give 1200 range back, also feel free to say if you don’t think we should have it back, but if you do post why.

So here are my 3 ideas.

#1: Rifle
This is the one I see a lot of people want on the Thief, mainly because they want to have a sniper type of weapon. Now I’m not really good at making us skills but if you are feel free to make a skill set and some traits to go with it. This is probable the least ideal of my ideas because it could take some time to create the skill, traits and balancing.

#2: Short bow
Well they must of taken it off cluster-bomb for a reason (I guess they think it was too strong) so I’m not going to say revert the nerf but put 1200 range onto the auto attack of the SB to compensate. Though it isn’t much of a problem with the short bow because its a very mobile weapon thanks to infiltrator arrow allowing you to get into range.

#3: Pistols/Ricochet
The main reason I want pistols to have the range is because of dual pistols being a bit meh right now(how many people do you see using them?!). So my idea was to make the trait Ricochet to also increase the range of pistols. Now you may be wondering why put it on the trait and not just up there normal range to 1200, well D/P, S/P, and P/D are quite mobile already with skills 2 and 3 on D/P and skill 2 on S/P allowing you to get up close and skill 3 on P/D to get you away. Since Ricochet wouldn’t be as viable on these sets people will most likely want to use Dual Pistols as there 1200 ranged weapon meaning both P/P and Ricochet would see more use.

TL;DR post ideas who to give Thief 1200 range again.

I want kunai/shuriken to be 1200 range and they fit with the whole thief vibe.

I really feel the 1200 range cluster bomb nerf btw…this was a big nerf. It really limited my options for siege warfare.

Try to press f1.

Master of Timespace.2548:

Try to press f1.

That doesn’t see like a good idea when you taking down a gate in WvW or there is a mass of AoEs around your target.

I agree with giving it to dual pistols. Shortbow was too strong with a 1200 range option, but double pistols is too weak right now, it really needs 1200 range to be somewhat viable.

they should release a crossbow weapon type. not just for thieves, we’re not the only class with kittenty ranged options.

I personally think they might be able to give us a 1200 range trait on P/P if they scaled the damage on unload, similar to what they do with certain skills for the ranger or mesmer, but in reverse. Instead of doing more damage from a distance, a thief with pistols should do less damage from 1200, but increasingly more the closer he got to the target. That would be keeping in line with the class motif, and add a little bit of tactical challenge to playing P/P effectively.

They should just reverse it, it’s obvius that it was only done so that shortbows are consistent across both Thief and Ranger classes (and until a dev ever bothers to grace us with their presence to explain some of their decisions I refuse to accept anything else as an explanation).

Master of Timespace.2548:

Try to press f1.

And shadowstep 900 range… so what?

to all the people whining about 1200 range being “lost”… did anyone here honestly use cluster bomb at max range?

BrunoBRS.5178:

to all the people whining about 1200 range being “lost”… did anyone here honestly use cluster bomb at max range?

Yea all the time. It’s incredibly useful for ZvZ and siege warfare and also situationally awesome for small scale PvP.

bleh Rifle? I want an Arbalest for 1200 range please.

EDIT: Reason being, you can’t effectively stay in stealth with a Rifle — too noisy.

Excalibur.9748:

BrunoBRS.5178:

to all the people whining about 1200 range being “lost”… did anyone here honestly use cluster bomb at max range?

Yea all the time. It’s incredibly useful for ZvZ and siege warfare and also situationally awesome for small scale PvP.

at 1200 range? last i checked the only useful way to cluster bomb is firing it at your feet, because it would take an hour for it to land at max range, and it’s not like you can fire a bunch of them.

BrunoBRS.5178:

Excalibur.9748:

BrunoBRS.5178:

to all the people whining about 1200 range being “lost”… did anyone here honestly use cluster bomb at max range?

Yea all the time. It’s incredibly useful for ZvZ and siege warfare and also situationally awesome for small scale PvP.

at 1200 range? last i checked the only useful way to cluster bomb is firing it at your feet, because it would take an hour for it to land at max range, and it’s not like you can fire a bunch of them.

Well I play in a tier 2 server so in WvW my max range cluster bombs usually hit 3+ people cuz there’s just that much people.

MrFlump.8725:

So we are now the only class in this game who can’t get 1200 range (including traits) due to the recent nerf to cluster-bomb making it 900 range.

So I thought we could post idea’s how ANet could give 1200 range back, also feel free to say if you don’t think we should have it back, but if you do post why.

So here are my 3 ideas.

#1: Rifle
This is the one I see a lot of people want on the Thief, mainly because they want to have a sniper type of weapon. Now I’m not really good at making us skills but if you are feel free to make a skill set and some traits to go with it. This is probable the least ideal of my ideas because it could take some time to create the skill, traits and balancing.

#2: Short bow
Well they must of taken it off cluster-bomb for a reason (I guess they think it was too strong) so I’m not going to say revert the nerf but put 1200 range onto the auto attack of the SB to compensate. Though it isn’t much of a problem with the short bow because its a very mobile weapon thanks to infiltrator arrow allowing you to get into range.

#3: Pistols/Ricochet
The main reason I want pistols to have the range is because of dual pistols being a bit meh right now(how many people do you see using them?!). So my idea was to make the trait Ricochet to also increase the range of pistols. Now you may be wondering why put it on the trait and not just up there normal range to 1200, well D/P, S/P, and P/D are quite mobile already with skills 2 and 3 on D/P and skill 2 on S/P allowing you to get up close and skill 3 on P/D to get you away. Since Ricochet wouldn’t be as viable on these sets people will most likely want to use Dual Pistols as there 1200 ranged weapon meaning both P/P and Ricochet would see more use.

TL;DR post ideas who to give Thief 1200 range again.

longbow for 1200 range actually…i doubt the shortbow will go to 1200 again
ricochet for 1200 range…not bad… bit it would need a different name..

Excalibur.9748:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Excalibur.9748:

BrunoBRS.5178:

to all the people whining about 1200 range being “lost”… did anyone here honestly use cluster bomb at max range?

Yea all the time. It’s incredibly useful for ZvZ and siege warfare and also situationally awesome for small scale PvP.

at 1200 range? last i checked the only useful way to cluster bomb is firing it at your feet, because it would take an hour for it to land at max range, and it’s not like you can fire a bunch of them.

Well I play in a tier 2 server so in WvW my max range cluster bombs usually hit 3+ people cuz there’s just that much people.

i play in T2 too, and autoattacking with the bow will hit more people (for more damage) than the time it takes to land a cluster bomb at max range.

BrunoBRS.5178:

Excalibur.9748:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Excalibur.9748:

BrunoBRS.5178:

to all the people whining about 1200 range being “lost”… did anyone here honestly use cluster bomb at max range?

Yea all the time. It’s incredibly useful for ZvZ and siege warfare and also situationally awesome for small scale PvP.

at 1200 range? last i checked the only useful way to cluster bomb is firing it at your feet, because it would take an hour for it to land at max range, and it’s not like you can fire a bunch of them.

Well I play in a tier 2 server so in WvW my max range cluster bombs usually hit 3+ people cuz there’s just that much people.

i play in T2 too, and autoattacking with the bow will hit more people (for more damage) than the time it takes to land a cluster bomb at max range.

Auto attack can’t hit anyone in siege warfare. (if you’re on top of a castle and shoot down it will always say obstructed) Auto attack only has 900 range.

But yes, the auto attack is very good and I would always use the auto attack more than the cluster bombs. Now I pretty much stopped using it because if it’s the same range as AA It’s definately harder to connect.

BrunoBRS.5178:

to all the people whining about 1200 range being “lost”… did anyone here honestly use cluster bomb at max range?

Yes CB at 1200 wasn’t that great but it was nice to have the option to stay back at attacking if you went to sure about going in closer.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

bleh Rifle? I want an Arbalest for 1200 range please.

EDIT: Reason being, you can’t effectively stay in stealth with a Rifle — too noisy.

Considering the Thief can use magic to stealth (yes they use magic!), i assume they can muffle sound too.

Pistol…

Here’s an idea, drop vulnerability from 2 and replace it with a small aoe poison trail like the underwater speargun 4. Cause if you are using pistol mainhand on thief you are either a condition build or you have a pistol in your offhand which means your probably a zerker build. In which case having a ready poison and barrage means you can burst and when they heal they heal for 33% less and with barrage crit you can blast em away so their only option is to gtfo.

Dagger…

Give dagger back stab 6 stacks of bleed for 10 second and again get rid of vulnerability. Combine the effect of vulnerability with blind at a set amount so basically blind works the same but 1 blind counts and 10 stacks of vulnerability on its own. Not saying CnD should have blind, I’m saying that you can trait blind into CnD. Which will boost survivability but cost a little damage unless you nail it perfectly in which case you just landed a crit back stab on someone with 10% weakened defense. And left about 2k bleed damage on them even if you are full zerker. Condi thief now also has a reason to go into shadow arts as well and stop spamming death blossom. Makes condi viable in 1v1 scenarios in high level play.

Rifle… I never thought about it… I don’t know really what a thief would do with a rifle.

Short bow…

Fix the short bow 5… either make it cost like 2 or 3 initiative or fix it so elevation doesn’t mess it up. As it stands now, I ONLY use short bow 5 to move across a map. And I really don’t care about the nerf to cluster… I mean it ruins thief ranged mechanic with zerkers and in pulling attention to yourself but it’s easily replaced with short bow 4 which is also 900 but poison spammed on an enemy zerker group is EPIC they get 30-40 seconds of mitigated healing which is the point of poison. If anything that poison field could use a buff on it’s duration (The field duration)

Short Bow 5 rework, if Short bow 5 doesn’t get fixed then it’s intended purpose needs to be changed. Short bow 5 should work like speargun’s version where you shoot a target and you shadow step to the shot. Except it should be 3 parts, first fire the shot after a channeling, then the shot pierces and marks the target landing you where the arrow flight terminates, afterwards press 5 again to shadow step to the target.

Honestly though about the 1200 range thing… in 99% of the cases in pve you are using the short bow in way less than 900 range while kiting. In wvw you are using it to do weak but safe damage from a distance like support basically or to lure players to you… in which case you’d need 1200 since with 900 a player will be all over you before you can even detonate the arrow.

WvW mechanics:

Now with short bows in zerg groups is where they shine, while your group is being barraged by cannons and arrows you can basically have someone do a healing field and you can spam your 2 which turns into a near infinite hp pool for as long as the field lasts. At the same time you are chipping at the door as well. For that you don’t need 1200.

I really can’t think of 1 reason thief needs 1200 on short bow… there are so many other things wrong with the skills on that weapon anyway. =/ I would LOVE if the 5 worked properly and if it does work as Anet wants it to then they should just delete the weapon until they have better ideas and until the 5 is fixed I’m just going to call it my best mode of transportation through wvw.

An assassin could always use a sniper rifle…just saying.

flyingfox.6150:

An assassin could always use a sniper rifle…just saying.

Fine, but what exactly would they use it for?

Rangers move around with long bow and every other class uses it like a shot gun. =/
You’d probably need 1700 range for them to be useful.

Give Thieves staff so they can become shadow mages.

MrFlump.8725:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

bleh Rifle? I want an Arbalest for 1200 range please.

EDIT: Reason being, you can’t effectively stay in stealth with a Rifle — too noisy.

Considering the Thief can use magic to stealth (yes they use magic!), i assume they can muffle sound too.

Funny thing about that “magic”, they can’t even make their projectiles travel farther than 1200. So no, that “magic” is unreliable.

Ar-ba-lest! Ar-ba-lest! Ar-ba-lest!

Excalibur.9748:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Excalibur.9748:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Excalibur.9748:

BrunoBRS.5178:

to all the people whining about 1200 range being “lost”… did anyone here honestly use cluster bomb at max range?

Yea all the time. It’s incredibly useful for ZvZ and siege warfare and also situationally awesome for small scale PvP.

at 1200 range? last i checked the only useful way to cluster bomb is firing it at your feet, because it would take an hour for it to land at max range, and it’s not like you can fire a bunch of them.

Well I play in a tier 2 server so in WvW my max range cluster bombs usually hit 3+ people cuz there’s just that much people.

i play in T2 too, and autoattacking with the bow will hit more people (for more damage) than the time it takes to land a cluster bomb at max range.

Auto attack can’t hit anyone in siege warfare. (if you’re on top of a castle and shoot down it will always say obstructed) Auto attack only has 900 range.

But yes, the auto attack is very good and I would always use the auto attack more than the cluster bombs. Now I pretty much stopped using it because if it’s the same range as AA It’s definately harder to connect.

It was great for tower defense/hitting siege as well. Before I would smack rams with cluster bombs from relative safety. Now you have to be standing on the kitten edge of the wall to hit something below.

Pistol #2 skill slot is nearly useless… perfect for a new skill makeover

Change the trait trait that boosts shortbow damage by 5% to include increased shortbow range by x%. Or add a trait that increases pistol range by x%.

I’d like to see more traits like some of the other professions ranged traits, things like 15% chance to cause bleeding, or 60% chance on crit to cause bleeding, +5% crit chance on bleeding targets, things like that. I drool over some of the engineers ranged or on crit traits (I also play an Engineer).

This change (to CB 900 range) was so illogical. It was never OP, it needed like 3s to reach its 1200 range destination. And even how physics in real life work – shooting something in a trajectory gives it more range.

I’d love to see thief (and maybe ranger) be given a crossbow as a small AoE and condition weapon. Could look something like this:

1. Probably a trio chain of attacks with some vulnerability or weakness stacking, as well as 1200 range

2 Incendiary Bolt – 3 initiative – 900 range
Base damage 800, cause explosion (base damage 100) & 2 seconds of burning damage to target and anyone in radius of 260, blast finisher

3 Poison Dart – 3 initiative – 1200 range
Base damage 400, poison enemy for 5 seconds, also a poison combo field

4 Scattershot – 4 initiative – 900 range
Base damage 200 per pellet, fire a bolt which erupts mid flight causing 1 second of bleeding damage to targets (8 pellets)… this attack could also be made to do more damage the closer the range of the enemies (for example if you unloaded at point blank range it would do 1600 base damage and 8 ticks of bleeding for a second

5 Basilisk Dart- 7 intiative – range 900
Base damage 300 – Fire a bolt coated in basilisk’s venom ( basically the same as the elite skill but on a ranged attack)

I didnt really think this idea through very well xd so sorry if something is insanely imbalanced.

Another thing which might be cool would be a grappling hook attack which pulls the enemy to you.

I’m also hoping for a mainhand pistol buff for thief!

The rifle/sniper aspect could be amazing. The invis skill could be something cool like the longer the thief has spent in invis (or spent charging the ability idc), the higher the burst. I don’t know what else could be done with is as everything else I can think of is either on warrior bar (rapid fire thing) or engi (shotgun thing). Good thing game design and character balance isn’t my job

infantrydiv.1620:

I’d love to see thief (and maybe ranger) be given a crossbow as a small AoE and condition weapon. Could look something like this:

1. Probably a trio chain of attacks with some vulnerability or weakness stacking, as well as 1200 range

2 Incendiary Bolt – 3 initiative – 900 range
Base damage 800, cause explosion (base damage 100) & 2 seconds of burning damage to target and anyone in radius of 260, blast finisher

3 Poison Dart – 3 initiative – 1200 range
Base damage 400, poison enemy for 5 seconds, also a poison combo field

4 Scattershot – 4 initiative – 900 range
Base damage 200 per pellet, fire a bolt which erupts mid flight causing 1 second of bleeding damage to targets (8 pellets)… this attack could also be made to do more damage the closer the range of the enemies (for example if you unloaded at point blank range it would do 1600 base damage and 8 ticks of bleeding for a second

5 Basilisk Dart- 7 intiative – range 900
Base damage 300 – Fire a bolt coated in basilisk’s venom ( basically the same as the elite skill but on a ranged attack)

I didnt really think this idea through very well xd so sorry if something is insanely imbalanced.

Another thing which might be cool would be a grappling hook attack which pulls the enemy to you.

I’m also hoping for a mainhand pistol buff for thief!

i imagine a crossbow would work like a mix of ranger SB and engie pistol, but with longbow speed. so more scattershot options, mini-AoE on hit, and focus on condi damage.

then the thief would have all 3 bases covered for ranged: support with bow, power with P/P, and condi with crossbow.

not sure what would happen to P/D builds though. maybe a rework to make them viable in comparison to crossbow in terms of condi damage. plus, P/D is already in need of a buff…

Wastrelz.8235:

I personally think they might be able to give us a 1200 range trait on P/P if they scaled the damage on unload, similar to what they do with certain skills for the ranger or mesmer, but in reverse. Instead of doing more damage from a distance, a thief with pistols should do less damage from 1200, but increasingly more the closer he got to the target. That would be keeping in line with the class motif, and add a little bit of tactical challenge to playing P/P effectively.

Very much in favor of this. If they intend to keep Body Shot the way it is, at least let pistol skills be traitable 1200 range.

As for the rifle, I imagine it to be 3 melee/utility skills (1, 2, 3) and 2 utility/stealthing skills (4, 5). 1, 2, and 3 however become 1200 ranged skills when in stealth. This would make it so you have to be stealthed to “snipe”.

Ezeriel.9574:

Pistol #2 skill slot is nearly useless… perfect for a new skill makeover

This.

infantrydiv.1620:

I’d love to see thief (and maybe ranger) be given a crossbow as a small AoE and condition weapon. Could look something like this:

1. Probably a trio chain of attacks with some vulnerability or weakness stacking, as well as 1200 range

2 Incendiary Bolt – 3 initiative – 900 range
Base damage 800, cause explosion (base damage 100) & 2 seconds of burning damage to target and anyone in radius of 260, blast finisher

3 Poison Dart – 3 initiative – 1200 range
Base damage 400, poison enemy for 5 seconds, also a poison combo field

4 Scattershot – 4 initiative – 900 range
Base damage 200 per pellet, fire a bolt which erupts mid flight causing 1 second of bleeding damage to targets (8 pellets)… this attack could also be made to do more damage the closer the range of the enemies (for example if you unloaded at point blank range it would do 1600 base damage and 8 ticks of bleeding for a second

5 Basilisk Dart- 7 intiative – range 900
Base damage 300 – Fire a bolt coated in basilisk’s venom ( basically the same as the elite skill but on a ranged attack)

I didnt really think this idea through very well xd so sorry if something is insanely imbalanced.

Another thing which might be cool would be a grappling hook attack which pulls the enemy to you.

I’m also hoping for a mainhand pistol buff for thief!

Skill 5 is.. err OP.

Pick the thief guild as elite. Make sure you have the crossbow equiped and D/D in offhand and some util skills that grand stealth (BP for example). Also, trait with the faster initiative gain when stealthed and when using a stealth skill +2 initiative. Then, what makes this OP?

You cast the basillisk bolt, swap to D/D stealth yourself with BP or so (and gain initiative). Then you steal towards your target and smack them with a backstab. This all can be done within the first 0.75 seconds of the poison effect, leaving another 0.75 seconds left to autoattack and a cloak and dagger.

Assuming you backstab for 8K this will result in an almost instant death anything not guardian or warrior.

Avatar Yirachi.7162:

infantrydiv.1620:

I’d love to see thief (and maybe ranger) be given a crossbow as a small AoE and condition weapon. Could look something like this:

1. Probably a trio chain of attacks with some vulnerability or weakness stacking, as well as 1200 range

2 Incendiary Bolt – 3 initiative – 900 range
Base damage 800, cause explosion (base damage 100) & 2 seconds of burning damage to target and anyone in radius of 260, blast finisher

3 Poison Dart – 3 initiative – 1200 range
Base damage 400, poison enemy for 5 seconds, also a poison combo field

4 Scattershot – 4 initiative – 900 range
Base damage 200 per pellet, fire a bolt which erupts mid flight causing 1 second of bleeding damage to targets (8 pellets)… this attack could also be made to do more damage the closer the range of the enemies (for example if you unloaded at point blank range it would do 1600 base damage and 8 ticks of bleeding for a second

5 Basilisk Dart- 7 intiative – range 900
Base damage 300 – Fire a bolt coated in basilisk’s venom ( basically the same as the elite skill but on a ranged attack)

I didnt really think this idea through very well xd so sorry if something is insanely imbalanced.

Another thing which might be cool would be a grappling hook attack which pulls the enemy to you.

I’m also hoping for a mainhand pistol buff for thief!

Skill 5 is.. err OP.

Pick the thief guild as elite. Make sure you have the crossbow equiped and D/D in offhand and some util skills that grand stealth (BP for example). Also, trait with the faster initiative gain when stealthed and when using a stealth skill +2 initiative. Then, what makes this OP?

You cast the basillisk bolt, swap to D/D stealth yourself with BP or so (and gain initiative). Then you steal towards your target and smack them with a backstab. This all can be done within the first 0.75 seconds of the poison effect, leaving another 0.75 seconds left to autoattack and a cloak and dagger.

Assuming you backstab for 8K this will result in an almost instant death anything not guardian or warrior.

i don’t think anyone seriously expects the devs to put the thief’s signature burst elite on a spammable weapon skill :P

Shortbow is now pretty much a mid-range to close quarters weapon. I just wish they would go a bit more all out on it now, and fix clusterbomb to have a faster projectile speed.

I think the best fit for 1200 range weapon would be to give us Rifle. We already use pistols, so moving up to a rifle isn’t far-fetched from a logic standpoint. It’s also a two-handed weapon, so there wouldn’t have to be any worries how it interacts with other weapons.

It could be more single target damage, though throwing in one AOE skill with a burning effect might not be bad. I know some people are commenting about how it should be less mobile, but I don’t really see why. It could have one skill that’s a big windup shot to deal massive damage, but the rest could be more versatile. One skill could be similar to Black Powder, creating an AOE blind, but also stealthing the player. Other skills could be a knockback, or a leap. I do think it should stay a bit away from condition damages like bleeds, though Burning/Torment might be interesting. Really though, conditions should be made more useful on Shortbow and Pistols first.

Regarding pistols, I know they could be seen as a 1200 range weapon, but I don’t think they would work very well in that role without some major tweaks. Dual pistols just isn’t very fun to play even now.

I guess an easier thing though might be to just give us on trait somewhere that increases the range of Shortbow/Pistol. It wouldn’t be as nice as getting the rifle, but at least then I would have that option if I wanted it.

The real issue here is a keep defending. Despite the lack luster damage cluster bomb was almost necessary to contribute your small part in big fight. I will not talk this up like thief is at that much of a disadvantage but I never saw an issue with it in the first place. This feels like one of those silly unnecessary nerfs that make you shake your head. Of the many thing in this class that could have been nerfed in PvP and the many buffs unseen in PvE this is just stupid.

Here is an idea put clusterbomb back 1,200 lol.

Thief has good range for steal if you trait for it but that’s all we get. The thing that sucks the most about the clusterbomb nerf is shooting at enemies below a tower. You’ll never hit anything.

Excalibur.9748:

I want kunai/shuriken to be 1200 range and they fit with the whole thief vibe.

I really feel the 1200 range cluster bomb nerf btw…this was a big nerf. It really limited my options for siege warfare.

This idea is freaking amazing! I’d love nothing more that that hahahaa

The Shadow Arts Trait “Power Shots” could be changed to “Short bow and harpoon gun range is increased, and damage is increased by 5%.” This would give some play to a trait that few currently take.

Maaaaybe they took 1200 range from Shortbow, so that the new sniper rifle would have a solid niche on Thieves!
…Two years from now.