Zapp – 80 Asura Afromancer
I love steal, but I wish we had F2-F4 too.
I think it’s odd in general that we hardly have any options for weapons/attacks. We have 7 weapon combinations (on land) and F1. Elementalists and engineers have less weapons to use but gain the kits/elements. Every other class has 10-19 weapon combinations.
And somehow the class with 3 weapon combinations is bugged like no other.
I would love to be able to store some of the stolen items in F2-F4. It would probably be a bit op to have a spare fear or plasma on hand. Mostly I just use them right away so I can steal something else asap.
just give us Shadow return as F2 so steal has a use for ranged builds
I wish I could throw away stolen items if I want to. Getting stuck with a whirling axe in a build with less than a thousand power is amazingly frustrating.
Since we’re wishing here, I want stances that I can set on F2-F4. For example:
- Focused Stance: + Initiative Regeneration, – Damage
- Longshot Stance: Increases all ranged attack distance, – Initiative Regeneration, reduces ranged attack cost by 1 Initiative
- Parrying Stance: Chance to absorb projectiles and reflect melee damage
Lol, when i first said “steal is meh from a design perspective and OP from a performance perspective” i got stormraged.
Now, with more experience, people is slowly starting to understand how simple and bad designed steal is.
The items are OP, the traits are OP BUT STILL it feels so irrilevant for thief gameplay.
In my build i use it almost exclusively for its damage with mug, and the stolen item is only a bonus. An OP bonus.
Clearly a well rounded and designed mechanic
/shrug
there are a few classes that only have F1 actually. not all of the class mechanics need multiple buttons.
Warriors just have the single F1 button to make their burst attack. the rest of the class mechanic is managed more passively through things related to accumulating Adrenaline.
Necromancers also just have the single F1 button, to go into Death Shroud mode. similar to Warriors burst attack, the rest of the mechanic is managed more passively through things related to accumulating Life Force.
and similarly the Thief also just has the single F1 button to Steal, with the rest of the interactions with the class mechanic occurring passively with the Traits to make Steal do extra stuff.
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edit: idea for actually using F2-F4
one of the better suggestions I’ve read from other posters on this forum is to have the extra slots act as storage for stolen item/abilities. For example F1 would always be the steal button, and it would deposit a stolen skill in the next available storage slot. you’d press F2, F3, or F4 to use the stolen item stored in that slot.
from a design perspective i feel like that would be an elegant and flavorful use of the other F buttons. i do think it would be kinda overpowered though.
(edited by metaphorm.6904)
there are a few classes that only have F1 actually. not all of the class mechanics need multiple buttons.
Warriors just have the single F1 button to make their burst attack. the rest of the class mechanic is managed more passively through things related to accumulating Adrenaline.
Necromancers also just have the single F1 button, to go into Death Shroud mode. similar to Warriors burst attack, the rest of the mechanic is managed more passively through things related to accumulating Life Force.
and similarly the Thief also just has the single F1 button to Steal, with the rest of the interactions with the class mechanic occurring passively with the Traits to make Steal do extra stuff.
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edit: idea for actually using F2-F4one of the better suggestions I’ve read from other posters on this forum is to have the extra slots act as storage for stolen item/abilities. For example F1 would always be the steal button, and it would deposit a stolen skill in the next available storage slot. you’d press F2, F3, or F4 to use the stolen item stored in that slot.
from a design perspective i feel like that would be an elegant and flavorful use of the other F buttons. i do think it would be kinda overpowered though.
Well Necro has multiple skills come up after they use their F1. Death Shroud has its own skill set.
Engineer, Mesmer, Ele, Ranger have F1-F4, Guardian has F1-F3, and Necro has only F1 but it grants you multiple skills
Only Warrior is in our same boat.
So far, I like my Idea for at least an F2 skill, for ranged thieves.
name it Shadow Escape, or Smoke Powder Defense, or something like that.
Shadow steps 600 units directly away from target and cloaks in stealth for 3s.
Shares cooldown with steal.
There’s enough stealth benefitting traits that you wouldn’t even need to modify the steal traits to include it.
Zapp – 80 Asura Afromancer
Just give 3 different abilities with each stolen item. You can choose one to use with F2-F4, or you can drop the item without using it with F1.
For example the stolen warrior axe, could give F2 – whirling axe (channeled pbAoE that is mobile), F3 – dual strike (hits twice and causes fury on self), F4 – throw axe (cripples)
I liked a suggestion previously of to store up stolen items into F1-F4.
there are a few classes that only have F1 actually. not all of the class mechanics need multiple buttons.
Warriors just have the single F1 button to make their burst attack. the rest of the class mechanic is managed more passively through things related to accumulating Adrenaline.
Necromancers also just have the single F1 button, to go into Death Shroud mode. similar to Warriors burst attack, the rest of the mechanic is managed more passively through things related to accumulating Life Force.
and similarly the Thief also just has the single F1 button to Steal, with the rest of the interactions with the class mechanic occurring passively with the Traits to make Steal do extra stuff.
————————
edit: idea for actually using F2-F4one of the better suggestions I’ve read from other posters on this forum is to have the extra slots act as storage for stolen item/abilities. For example F1 would always be the steal button, and it would deposit a stolen skill in the next available storage slot. you’d press F2, F3, or F4 to use the stolen item stored in that slot.
from a design perspective i feel like that would be an elegant and flavorful use of the other F buttons. i do think it would be kinda overpowered though.
The trick there would be to reduce stolen items effectiveness.
Current items are way too powerful, and from a balance perspective, since the thief has so small weapon choice ( aka: it’s predictable), having multiple slots to use our stolen items with more fluidity will make the thief much, MUCH more interesting.
Put a small shared CD to avoid big stolen items bursts and problem solved.
Of course Steal would also need a fairly softened CD ( 25 secs ), softened damage on Mug, and cunning reducing the F2-F4 pockets shared CD instead of reducing Steal CD.
Voilà.
I like that idea. I think Steal’s cooldown is too long in any event, but those are nice tweaks.
My psychic knife. The focused totality of my psychic powers.
The one thing I don’t like about that idea is, it’s still melee focused, ranged thieves don’t want to shadowstep to melee range of the target, especially when that target does melee range aoe that 1 shots a thief.
Zapp – 80 Asura Afromancer
The trick there would be to reduce stolen items effectiveness.
Current items are way too powerful, and from a balance perspective, since the thief has so small weapon choice ( aka: it’s predictable), having multiple slots to use our stolen items with more fluidity will make the thief much, MUCH more interesting.
Put a small shared CD to avoid big stolen items bursts and problem solved.
Of course Steal would also need a fairly softened CD ( 25 secs ), softened damage on Mug, and cunning reducing the F2-F4 pockets shared CD instead of reducing Steal CD.
Voilà.
this is a direction i’d feel pretty happy about. a shorter cooldown Steal would make sense for an item-storing implementation since you’d want to have more opportunities to steal items to store. 25 seconds or 30 seconds sounds pretty reasonable. i’ve frequently played builds with 30 points in Trickery and the 34 second cooldown on Steal from that is a noticeable difference.
and as you say, all of the Trait abilities that are linked to Steal would have to be rebalanced based on a shorter cooldown. just time normalized basically. Mug damage is the only one that obviously should be affected by this. It would still be a good Trait even if its damage was reduced by 20% (to make up for shorter CD).
the reason i like the idea of stored items so much is that it adds alot of strategic dimension to the class. the idea of saving a good stolen item for later is very appealing. i think it would be fun and bring out alot of player choice and meaningful decision making, which are all good things for the game.
as far as balancing the actual stolen skills themselves, besides time normalizing the damage output on them (going from something based on 45 second CD to something based on 30 second CD, probably a 20-25% reduction of effect), i don’t think any of them are really out of line right now.
The one thing I don’t like about that idea is, it’s still melee focused, ranged thieves don’t want to shadowstep to melee range of the target, especially when that target does melee range aoe that 1 shots a thief.
you’re right, Steal is definitely melee focused because it is a gap closer. i’m not sure i view this as a problem though. Thief is not a ranged class. Like all classes it has ranged weapons, but this is not a class designed for ranged damage dealing in the way that an Elementalist or Ranger is. Thief is a melee class with ranged support options, not the other way around.
Thief playstyle involves dancing back and forth between melee range and medium range. There are quite a few “jump back” abilities (such as Withdraw, Roll for Initiative, Shadow Strike, Disabling Shot). A big part of the Thief playstyle involves closing in and then rapdily withdrawing. I don’t think Steal needs an adjustment based on this.
The trick there would be to reduce stolen items effectiveness.
Current items are way too powerful, and from a balance perspective, since the thief has so small weapon choice ( aka: it’s predictable), having multiple slots to use our stolen items with more fluidity will make the thief much, MUCH more interesting.
Put a small shared CD to avoid big stolen items bursts and problem solved.
Of course Steal would also need a fairly softened CD ( 25 secs ), softened damage on Mug, and cunning reducing the F2-F4 pockets shared CD instead of reducing Steal CD.
Voilà.
this is a direction i’d feel pretty happy about. a shorter cooldown Steal would make sense for an item-storing implementation since you’d want to have more opportunities to steal items to store. 25 seconds or 30 seconds sounds pretty reasonable. i’ve frequently played builds with 30 points in Trickery and the 34 second cooldown on Steal from that is a noticeable difference.
and as you say, all of the Trait abilities that are linked to Steal would have to be rebalanced based on a shorter cooldown. just time normalized basically. Mug damage is the only one that obviously should be affected by this. It would still be a good Trait even if its damage was reduced by 20% (to make up for shorter CD).
the reason i like the idea of stored items so much is that it adds alot of strategic dimension to the class. the idea of saving a good stolen item for later is very appealing. i think it would be fun and bring out alot of player choice and meaningful decision making, which are all good things for the game.
as far as balancing the actual stolen skills themselves, besides time normalizing the damage output on them (going from something based on 45 second CD to something based on 30 second CD, probably a 20-25% reduction of effect), i don’t think any of them are really out of line right now.
Some items are OP.
Whirling axes is OP, guardian’s 4 secs daze is OP, fear skull is OP.
In a fight with lots of classes, the thief steals from these 3 proffs by default, stealing from other proffs only in specific situations ( from rangers if you need cond removal for your team, from engies to defend a cap point against condi-weak enemies and stuff).
It’s pretty standard to avoid stealing from eles and thieves ( unless you desperetely needs the stealth) and mesmer stealing doesn’t affect the fight like other ones.
While mesmer, engi and rangers stuff are goods, the first 3 are too much better.
Ele’s ice stab is the only one really underwhelming, when compared to other ones.
They would need a good rebalancing: they would need it even if they’re going to stick with this steal implementation.
Thief playstyle involves dancing back and forth between melee range and medium range. There are quite a few “jump back” abilities (such as Withdraw, Roll for Initiative, Shadow Strike, Disabling Shot). A big part of the Thief playstyle involves closing in and then rapdily withdrawing. I don’t think Steal needs an adjustment based on this.
Many thieves’ playstyles revolve around this bouncing back and forth between ranges, but I’m hesitant to classify the entire profession based upon the playstyles of some thieves. As someone who has played thief setups that both seek minimum range 100 % of the time and thief setups that seek maximum range 100 % of the time the desire for some people to be able to exclusively jump in and out of melee range should not shape the profession as a whole. We’ve got plenty of shadowstep/return options, I’d like to see something else for steal to remain relevant to thieves seeking to maintain range.
That said, the previously suggested “store stolen abilities” feature would be incredibly broken simply for the ability to save up several of the powerful abilities while still retaining steal’s mobility and traited offensive attributes, even if the cooldown was preserved.
how about besides steal we could for range have maybe a trick shot kinda like the engineer with the belt shot or whatever it is and maybe a trip for a 1 sec knockdown and another speed boost 2 sec’s too much? i know we already have alot of speed but 1 more cant hurt of course this can all either share a cooldown or atleast have the same cooldown time just my thoughts
Maybe stealing could give you access to multiple items, but allow only one to use at a time, perhaps each with their own internal cooldowns to make it balanced.
F1 – Pick pocket: basic steal
F2 – Mug: steal and deal damage
F3 – Smash and Grab: steal and knockback
F4 – Hit and Run: Steal and leap back with swiftness (for ranged wanting to get out of melee)
I think, one of the things that is really needed, is an F2 ‘scorpion wire’ type ability, that steals from range.
Easily implemented i would think: the player throws a wire to the enemy and the player gets the stolen item (think of it like a grappling hook in zelda games).
aside from that, i do believe thief could do with some more class based utility skills. Perhaps removing shadowstep from sword and the utility skill, and then replace it with a universal shadowstep/return skill? with a longer cooldown probably to compensate.
I don’t think Anet is ever going to change steal or any thief mechanics, at least not for a long LONG time
I think, one of the things that is really needed, is an F2 ‘scorpion wire’ type ability, that steals from range.
Easily implemented i would think: the player throws a wire to the enemy and the player gets the stolen item (think of it like a grappling hook in zelda games).aside from that, i do believe thief could do with some more class based utility skills. Perhaps removing shadowstep from sword and the utility skill, and then replace it with a universal shadowstep/return skill? with a longer cooldown probably to compensate.
No, keep infiltrator’s strike. It’s one of the only decent condition removals we have..
Zapp – 80 Asura Afromancer
In WvW, due to lagging and performance issues when you have 40+ people on screen I can’t run melee builds at all, so steal becomes totally useless to me.
I’d suggest a “remote” steal for F2, something that’s useful for ranged builds and doesn’t shadow step you into a guardian’s greatsword. Obviously, the stolen skill should also be a ranged one.
Dances with Leaves – Guardian – Sanctum of Rall (SoR)