Guild Wars 2

When you look at the numerous profession skills and compare their use to thief, do you think it’s enough?

This does not include added benefits to them, because everyone has traits that can vastly improve their profession skills. I’m talking strictly about the base of the profession skill. Is steal really enough or do we deserve more?

no its not. they should just give us our useless venom skills as f-skills with 1 charge and cooldown reduced to 20 seconds.

I mean, I guess the whole not having weapon skill cooldowns doesn’t count as a unique class mechanic. ._.

Renny.6571:

I mean, I guess the whole not having weapon skill cooldowns doesn’t count as a unique class mechanic. ._.

Sort of, but those skills are balanced around multiple uses. Take, for example, heartseeker and backstab which have a 2.0 and 2.4 multiplier on them. Balancing against a warrior, eviscerate has a 2.5 multiplier at level 2 and 3.0 at level 3. Now look at utility weapon skills such as headshot. It’s 1/3 of the thief’s global resource pool for a .25 second single target daze compared to a mesmer’s magic bullet.

While people often complain about the “spammable” aspect of thief weapon skills, without the aspect of repeatability, they are in fact nothing special.

Putting the venoms on the F-bar would be a nice change since they lack the individual strength to warrant a utility slot without heavily investing in them.

I’ve seen a lot of people asking for that, as well as making stolen skills their own F-2+ skill so that steal can be used without simply tossing said stolen skill.

I think venoms have their place as a utility/healing skill its just they require soo much of an investment you kinda feel like you’re just an aura for your team, instead of a support class. That’s just me though.

I actually think that Steal and initiative are sufficient class mechanics. Neither of them is particularly revolutionary (Steal especially), but they give thieves a unique flavor that you really can’t get close to with any other class.

hmm i think steal is fine but maybe it could also steal 1 boon on default aswell?

Arganthium.5638:

I actually think that Steal and initiative are sufficient class mechanics. Neither of them is particularly revolutionary (Steal especially), but they give thieves a unique flavor that you really can’t get close to with any other class.

I have no doubts of thief profession mechanics not being unique, the question is whether or not steal is enough.

In the end, more skills is better especially if they naturally have some added benefit to it.

Take for example ranger, they only really get 1 profession skill but that skill can be chosen from various pets to add something to any of their builds. Even if the pet may not play a huge role in their build, they can still bring some condi clearing, or regen, protection, fear, etc. Now take thief, what if none of their traits work on steal? Its just a stolen skill which depending on what you fight, may or may not help you at all. You can choose who to steal from, but you can’t choose what you steal (which is fine). Point being you don’t get to set yourself up with steal, while the other professions can build themselves on their profession skills without any spec. When you start adding bonus effects to these things it gets to be drastically different which is why I disregard them in this post.

Imho, I think thief deserves at least F2 for some utility.

Whether it be tied to the type of healing skill you use.
HiS=drop smoke field 3 seconds. Cooldown 30 seconds.
Withdraw=aoe swiftness 8 seconds. Cooldown 30 seconds.
Skelk venom=regen while a venom active. Passive
SoM= critical hits heal while on cooldown(weak heal like vampiric). Passive
OR
Shadow Armor=evade the next 2 attacks. Duration 3 seconds. Cooldown 45 seconds.

Idk if any more offence is needed, as we can pull that off fairly well except maybe condition builds. But we lack defence outside stealth as well as group utility. Not saying we don’t have any group build, but its such a heavy investment when other people can do it without special traits.

I said it all the way back in beta, steal is a lackluster class skill. They should have given us any of our other major utility types(Venoms, traps, deception, tricks). It has one use and that is closing the gap, what you steal is unreliable and may not fit your build at all. Steal from a necro and the conditions you inflict from it can come right back at you. Steal from a warrior as a condition thief and you’re just going to spin for very little damage while exposing yourself to more damage. It’s just not as cohesive to the class like all other class skills are.

I wish Steal was an interrupt that gave us a version of whatever skill we interrupted.

Stealing skills can be useful in PvP.

The heal from a ranger is a water field, useful to your team, and heart seeker in it a few times will get you a fair bit of health back. Warrior’s whirling axes is good too; it’s not bad damage, it’s AoE and costs no initiative. It’s helped me finish someone off on a number of occasions – damaging the downed target and the would-be reviver either takes it too or stops reviving. Fear from a necro has its uses, throw gunk not so much… 4 second chaos aura but requires you to have condition damage and to get hit directly to be of any benefit. I usually use the guard stolen skill while fighting the guard, same with the ele skill. Personally I discard throw gunk from engineer either in the fight, when out of combat, or when I want to use steal again.

That being said, it is a rather limited class mechanic. I haven’t liked any of the builds I’ve tested around steal. Some extra utility would be nice. In fact, speaking of extra utility, I’d just be happy with reliable access to perm swiftness like most other classes, not to mention we’re the quick footed acrobatic assassin class.. if any class should be able to get it, it should be thief. Then I could happily drop signet of shadows.

The ability needs to be scrapped and start over.

Impact.2780:

Stealing skills can be useful in PvP.

The heal from a ranger is a water field, useful to your team, and heart seeker in it a few times will get you a fair bit of health back. Warrior’s whirling axes is good too; it’s not bad damage, it’s AoE and costs no initiative. It’s helped me finish someone off on a number of occasions – damaging the downed target and the would-be reviver either takes it too or stops reviving. Fear from a necro has its uses, throw gunk not so much… 4 second chaos aura but requires you to have condition damage and to get hit directly to be of any benefit. I usually use the guard stolen skill while fighting the guard, same with the ele skill. Personally I discard throw gunk from engineer either in the fight, when out of combat, or when I want to use steal again.

That being said, it is a rather limited class mechanic. I haven’t liked any of the builds I’ve tested around steal. Some extra utility would be nice. In fact, speaking of extra utility, I’d just be happy with reliable access to perm swiftness like most other classes, not to mention we’re the quick footed acrobatic assassin class.. if any class should be able to get it, it should be thief. Then I could happily drop signet of shadows.

Some of the stolen skills are good, but like I said not all builds can work off whirlwind or throw gunk. Gunk btw ticks direct damage, so it breaks stealth which hurts, whirlwind on a condi build is well… bad.

Not all the skills are universal and they aren’t that easy to control either. You can’t run into a 3v1 and expect to get blinding tuft or consume ecto, class X may not be there and those 3 ppl may have nothing you can use without getting yourself killed.

Could be turned into a boon stealer with a 10 sec cd

It’s side effects you can benefit from if you build the proper traits for it are good.

Stealing’s active effect on it’s own is horribly unstable and random, something you can definitly not rely on. I very very disliked this mechanism at first, and even more after I tried out what the other classes are capable of (guardian virtues, ranger pets that allow you to choose exactly what you want from the “pets” feature), I dislike it more than ever. But sadly I had to get used to it, so I am… it doesn’t really bothers me. After 1 year of pure loyality to the thief (as a class) today I got to a point where even I gave it up, and this topic is just the last drop in a cup already full of frustration, continous and definitly not needed nerfs and half baked features we call “core class mechanisms” like stealth, stealing, hit and run, high burst damage. Each one, step by step, got crushed the ground from patch to patch. First revealed, then teleport cast time increase, then initative regen nerf (“for survival increase…”), steath combos with double backstabs, and here we are, discussing how utterly bad our CLASS SPECIFIC skill feature is. Just… enough. Swiching to guard, permanently.

@ipan
Problem with that is, a class feature should benefit the class itself in every situation. While in PvP and WvW, even in some dungeons boon stealing may sounds good, in average PvE enviroment, especially on lower levels, you don’t have any boon using target to steal from, and because of this boon stealing definitly won’t happen as a main feature. I’d like to see it as a trait instead, in a place of one of our many useless traits.

Sure – I’m just brainstorming.

I hate steal as is, but I find it very difficult to think of anything better, that also remains “stealing”.

Honestly, I think it was a terrible idea to build the Thief around the idea of stealing.

Take away stealing, and what you have is an Assassin. Anet wanted to be “original” – and failed horribly.

I don’t know what the fix is – but boon stealing, or steal-interrupt would be better than what we have.

ive brought this up for 8-9 months now.

its no where near other professions. the only good thing about it is a gap closer. none of the skills are really usefull other than warrior whirl. if guardian one was quicker i would like it.

but still…. its nowhere even close to what other classes have.

I would like to see as either a thief elite or as an F2 profession skill something similar to Guild Wars 1 Shadow Form for assassins.

Maybe as an elite – X seoncds: Enemy Spells can not target you. Evade all attacks. You may still attack
As a profession skill. Evade all attacks for X seconds. Siphon X life from your foe whenever you successfully evade an attack

I would love to see something like this implemented to give evasion thieves something more to work with and a really good elite, although we do have some good elites already

Impact.2780:

Stealing skills can be useful in PvP.

The heal from a ranger is a water field, useful to your team, and heart seeker in it a few times will get you a fair bit of health back. Warrior’s whirling axes is good too; it’s not bad damage, it’s AoE and costs no initiative. It’s helped me finish someone off on a number of occasions – damaging the downed target and the would-be reviver either takes it too or stops reviving. Fear from a necro has its uses, throw gunk not so much… 4 second chaos aura but requires you to have condition damage and to get hit directly to be of any benefit. I usually use the guard stolen skill while fighting the guard, same with the ele skill. Personally I discard throw gunk from engineer either in the fight, when out of combat, or when I want to use steal again.

That ranger water field also gives you the regen boon if you’re no where near it. Warrior whirl reflects projectiles, necro fear is pretty solid imo, Throw gunk actually does 2k+ pulses of damage problem is it de-stealths you and is poor to combo with and they have to stand in it. Damage portion of throw gunk should be front loaded in a single spike hit followed by condi+chaos field portion which should persist and pulse condis for a while. I totally agree with the guardian and ele steals being effective against the class sometimes punishingly if you have one stored and are running daze steal.
Something many people dont know because there is such a hate for underwater combat and its very situational, is that if you steal from a warrior underwater than go onto land it becomes a Branch leap finisher+evade that has a higher damage range than a back stab which can be rather funny to open with a CnD+backstab+leap evade branch of death.

That being said i would not be opposed to removing Slight of hand, hidden thief, mug, and thrill of the crime and reworking them into a respective F1-F4 where you choose which one to use that puts all others on cool down giving you a reason to be more selective on what,how,when you steal as well as timing.

Though who knows anet may have some crazy new op elites or weapon skills planned for 2014 and all of this could just be thief pity partying/annoyance after all the nerfs. We’ll have to wait and see/hope/pray/ragequit ect.

I’ve been following thief since launch and to this day, it saddens me to see how little flavor has been added to our profession. They fix something, they add something cool followed by numerous nerfs, we really haven’t advanced outside of poking in and out of stealth with burst dmg and whimsy condition builds.

Guardian has it worst surprisingly, but our condition builds aren’t all that great. I’ve watched healing signet outheal the thief p/d aa with some stealth skills thrown in. Not to say healing signet is at all fair, but the fact that a regen can negate an entire build says something. Everyone else (except guard) gets long lasting and multiple conditions, that’s the whole point of a condition build. Not 1 or 2 spammable skills putting short lasting conditions, there needs to be variety or condition removal/regen just makes you obsolete.

On a side note: Has anyone used a strictly condition based build against an ele running diamond skin lately? How was it? Did you waste your time like I did?

I am usually not prone to insulting strangers on the internet. But… Are you completely stupid steal is freaking great as it is.

When I read that axe whirl is the only decent steal I want to come and hit you, WITH A BLUNT SPOON.

All the stolen items are good, some are borderline overpowered especially if you trait steal and go trickery.

In addition you can get lots of valuable items form critters and mobs.

This thread is so depressing.

Steal is good as it is and if used correctly can really help you in a fight. And when traited, well, it is an uber skill. My steal does the following:

Every 21.5 seconds I can:
– Shadow step to my target
– Stealth for 3 seconds
– Gain regen from stealthing
– Remove a condition from stealthing
– Poison the target for 11 seconds
– Give myself and my allies Vigor, Fury, Might and Swiftness for 10 seconds
– Steal 2 boons from my target
– Deal approx 2k damage
– Heal nearly 2k health
– Gain a random (often useful) skill
– Daze my target for 1 second
– Can be used while stunned (so can daze the stunner to prevent them from doing the post stun rotation)

So while steal on it’s own it only ok, it can be made into a build defining skill. I also feel that initiative is a class mechanic worth noting. While our skills are balance around it and technically should be no more powerful that other professions, it does give us more flexibility and mistake recovery than other professions.

Personally, without traits, I feel steal is a better mechanic that the warrior’s burst skill. Of course the warrior compensates for this with a wide variety of weapons.

Personally, I feel steal and initiative are enough.

Rin.1046:

Steal is good as it is and if used correctly can really help you in a fight. And when traited, well, it is an uber skill. My steal does the following:

Every 21.5 seconds I can:
– Shadow step to my target
– Stealth for 3 seconds
– Gain regen from stealthing
– Remove a condition from stealthing
– Poison the target for 11 seconds
– Give myself and my allies Vigor, Fury, Might and Swiftness for 10 seconds
– Steal 2 boons from my target
– Deal approx 2k damage
– Heal nearly 2k health
– Gain a random (often useful) skill
– Daze my target for 1 second
– Can be used while stunned (so can daze the stunner to prevent them from doing the post stun rotation)

So while steal on it’s own it only ok, it can be made into a build defining skill. I also feel that initiative is a class mechanic worth noting. While our skills are balance around it and technically should be no more powerful that other professions, it does give us more flexibility and mistake recovery than other professions.

Personally, without traits, I feel steal is a better mechanic that the warrior’s burst skill. Of course the warrior compensates for this with a wide variety of weapons.

Personally, I feel steal and initiative are enough.

The post is about steal, not the traits that buff steal. People can say attunement swapping is bleh and then you get all these boons/effects for simply swapping to them when traited.

Also, initative isn’t really all the special. You can spam a skill, yippee, but initiative doesn’t make you a god, the skills are balanced around being spammable. Kinda the reason why #2 on pistol only immobilizes for 1 second vs most skills which do for 3. Also why headshot is a .25 second daze vs skills like ranger sb #5 that is 1 second daze or stun or any warrior stun skill. Their are weaker because they can be spammed (except bs), so you really aren’t making up for anything.

In response to the whirlwind, yeah if you’re running a condi spec that whirlwind isn’t going to hit hard. In fact you’ll just be putting yourself at a more vulnerable spot because the dmg will be low enough for some builds to just sit there and melee you down. On a condi build often I just toss this skill because waiting for a ranged build to come along is just going to waste my time, I’d rather use steal on something else that will help me. For spvp:

Ice shard stab- universal although if you 1v1 an ele chill will come off rather quick on them anyways, better saved for builds that can’t clear conditions like a veteran karka.

Mace head crack- good for stopping a heal in melee range, or a stomp/raise. Most guardian run shelter however and you will never stop their heal anyways unless you get LS to work off basilik venom and they don’t already have stability. Best saved for group fights or classes with easy to stop healing skills.

Blinding tuft- universal, stealth and thief go together like norn’s and alcohol.

Skull fear- great aoe cc but really really easy to interrupt or negate. Most necro have some form of blind or fear (F1 or #5 on staff). Unless hopping into a group fight and you pop stealth and use it, hard to land against good players.

Throw gunk- useless unless you are a condi spec. Even with scorpion wire mixed IS, you only get a few conditions on them and they don’t last real long or deal any significant damage. Also the direct damage really hurts builds who rely on stealth, which are a lot.

Whirling Axe- great for power builds, but many professions can soak up enough damage and simply control you and beat you to a pulp. You also aren’t immune to ground targeted aoe. For thief to do significant damage with this has to invest a lot into dps traits/gear, meaning they are easier to kill. Often I only use this skill if I can put down a smoke field to avoid that to an extent because they can still just walk off the field. As for condi builds, really no use aside from running away from a ranged class as to reflect their projectiles.

Consume Ectoplasm- universal, boons help no matter what shape or size.

Healing seed- universal, good skill to heal back up. Either HS or CB will boost you back up, and it also gives something all thief need, more condi clearing.

But keep in mind, block, invulnerable, and blind will cause steal to miss and you get nothing then. I’m referring to steal alone, and not with buffs for reasons stated earlier.

Steal is single target and predetermined on what you will get when you steal from enemy X or Y. That is really unique, yes, but I don’t think it is up to par when compared to what other professions can do without traits, and even with traits. Not all stolen skills are universal for thief builds, and some get in the way that you just toss them to get back to steal. It’s not a rewarding system as it may seem.

I like steal — it’s always useful as a gap-closer, and good players make excellent use of it. Look at one of Yishis videos for examples.

Also, be glad we don’t have the elementalist mechanic. Theirs is just an additional layer of cooldowns to manage.

NinjaEd.3946:

…You can spam a skill, yippee, but initiative doesn’t make you a god…

This sentence kind of tells us what you expect from the thief. Initiative, nor any other aspect of any profession, should make you god like.

Also, just because you can spam a skill more than once does not mean you should. But lets for example say an enemy casts a heal, but they have aegis, if you are quick enough and have enough ini you can fire another headshot and stop the heal. Any other profession would have to blow another cooldown to do this.

Personally it is because of the initiative system that the thief is my main character. I love it and I find all other professions to be more limited because of it. I love the freedom it can offer and I do not spam the same skill over and over again. I use sword + dagger as my primary set and I use every skill on the bar. In most fights I use all but skill 4.

As to steal, yes I know this is about steal on it’s own, and I did start the post stating that it is ok without traits. But if it makes you feel better, I’ll answer the question again in a different way: Is steal really enough or do we deserve more? Yes steal is enough. It is a better skill than most burst skills and while it may not be as good (in base form) as many other profession mechanics, it can be (as far as I can tell) traited in better ways and improved more than many other profession mechanics. Your ability to trait steal should not be ignored, because it can be traited in better ways than many others.

Additionally:

But keep in mind, block, invulnerable, and blind will cause steal to miss and you get nothing then. I’m referring to steal alone, and not with buffs for reasons stated earlier.

I do agree that steal on its own suffers a bit because of this, but this does not happen very often and it’s not the only profession mechanic to suffer. If I see my enemy has aegis or is blocking I know not to use steal, simple.

The skills you get from stealing are situation I agree, but that is rarely a bad thing. I usually find a use for the stolen item in most if not all fights and I very very rarely discard it just to get steal back. That said, I would not object to having a second F button to store the stolen skill in, if it makes the skill more enjoyable for everyone I see no harm in it.

So, it appears to me that those who “like” steal are saying two things:

They like the shadowstep, and they like the additional benefits they get from traits.

So, why call it Steal at all? Seems like a farce to me.

Just call it Shadowstep.

I thought this was about the actual ‘stealing a skill’ aspect of steal. Obviously the shadow step is useful, as can be some of the steal oriented traits. However, they are still restricted in comparison to other classes, who can use their F skills more often, and can control what they do via weapons or and have an array of which to pick from which increases the benefits of traits focused around their use.

I just think it would be a good aspect of the thief to develop further. Really, anything that leads to some more build diversity. I’d really like more reliable access to and longer lasting swiftness so we can keep up with our targets without having to spam heartseeker or shadow shot, and not be so slow when out of combat (or worse, not fighting but still technically IN combat). I mean, what use is an assassin that get to where they are needed as swiftly as possible, or can’t catch their target – their target who in heavy armour with much heavier weapons, can run 4x faster than you with perm swiftness and one or two movement skills.

Often people complain that when they get a thief low and then the thief escapes through stealth, that they were cheated out of a kill. Well at least it’s balanced – a thief is easy to damage. Look at warrior, with all that armour, build diversity allowing investment into toughness without significant DPS loss, passive heals (furthermore the increased defense and base health make their toughness, armour and healing power much more valuable than it is to other classes which is very unbalanced). They can be quite difficult and time consuming to get low, and then they can escape all the same. The only difference is you spend more time and get to see them when they run.

Could be along the lines of that, where they add onto steal without adding more skills to manage.

@Rin, a lot of those things are basic, you see a warrior pop shield stance or a guardian use shelter you shouldn’t steal unless its to get away from someone else, cuz it won’t do much good. I wouldn’t say the base of steal is better than some warrior burst skills, because their build will revolve around those burst skills. They don’t have to trait for burst skills and they can already choose how their burst skill affects their build, and in some cases its a large part of their build.

I will say, for the short time being since it keeps being brought up, that steal traits are great. You get a wide variety of things to do with it, and it is rewarding. But not everyone goes into trickery for bountiful theft, or sleight of hand, or into DA for mug, not all builds can or want to spec into certain trait lines for these things, its kind of a crutch to force people to do so. That’s not to say we deserve all these traits naturally, that would be broken as all hell, but there should be more than just a shadowstep and a stolen skill that may or may not help you at all.

Either a rework of steal or a 2nd profession skill that’s either universal or adjustable to how you build without hindering yourself with major traits just to make a class mechanic, which you are stuck with, beneficial. I like the stealth skills, those you can control based on weapon choice and they play a large role in most builds. Steal on the other hand you either invest into or its quite clunky and kind of just left alone for some.

Warrior gets 2 profession skills with base 10 second cooldowns and can be improved with more adrenaline, naturally. Keep in mind base weapon swap is 10 seconds so at base, they can have always have 1 ready when they weapon swap.

Guardian gets 3 passives/actives. Little burn passive never hurt, passive regen although base is low, isn’t bad nor is the small burst heal. Active aegis is useful anywhere.

Ranger gets 2 profession skills. Although it can be argued that the pet is a crutch, there are builds that can avoid its use and just have the pet as another skill. Things from regen, protection, fear, condi clearing, you name it. It’s not the best system but you atleast have a choice to some extent.

Engineer gets 4 skills based on their healing/utility skill choice. Now they don’t have weapon swap, and forcing anyone to use something like a kit imo is a crutch, but its quite clear that some kits are really good based on their popularity. So in the end they still get 2 weapons, 0 cd on swap btw, and get 4 skills with some surprisingly good benefits. They don’t need to trait into the toolbelt to make some of those skills very useful for themselves or their team.

Mesmer gets 4 shatter skills. Now they may not be condition based, but daze is universal, and distortion is as well when you get locked down. If they are condition based, they can still pop confusion and hurt you big time. Not to mention these are all separate cooldowns. Clone production isn’t hard either, some can go above and beyond the clone army and you will never stop seeing them.

Necro gets a 2nd life bar, as well kitten new skills all of which are rather universal. Torment + immobilize fits both power and condi builds, chill is movement as well as gap closer, #1 hits hard for power builds, 4 keeps you in it longer and hits rather hard and #3 is instant cast and can be used in so many ways. It’s almost like stealth, because you can wait for other cooldowns to come off while in this form and last a long time depending on your set up.

Ele gets 2 more weapon sets than anyone else (except maybe engi if they go full kits XD). To some it’s just more cooldowns, but really its more than that. It’s either burst, its condition application, its recovery, control, you name it. Even though you can’t swap out of that dingy staff or d/d, you get a ton of utility from attunements that work together (combo fields+finishers). I can’t say I’ve ever been bursted by a staff ele, but they have their ways of staying afloat and in group fights they sure can turn the tide.

Thief gets a shadowstep and a stolen skill based on what they hit and if they hit it. It isn’t useless, but it isn’t 100% useful for thief builds as a whole, and that bothers me.

Steal is the worst class mechanic in the game.

2nd worst is Ranger pets.

Steal is actually a pretty good mechanic, especially against rangers/mesmers/necros/thieves.

Steal is really good against Moa’s and Ice Elementals.

Merge Ranger and Thief into one profession. You then have your ultimate 1337 rogue class.

just make it steal one boon in addition to what it already does but its still pretty decent tbh. Only the ele skill sucks. Engi gunk isn’t the best but it can be useful esp if you run p/d condi build.

vincecontix.1264:

just make it steal one boon in addition to what it already does but its still pretty decent tbh. Only the ele skill sucks. Engi gunk isn’t the best but it can be useful esp if you run p/d condi build.

Keep in mind unless they have a condition remover at their disposal, its a 10 second chill. To most builds, 1 condition is meh but if caught off guard 10 seconds of them barely moving is quite significant. Still if I’m 1v1 an ele, the last thing I want to waste my time doing is putting a condition on them that will get removed in seconds so I see your point from a certain light.

Stealing 1 boon naturally would be nice, we do lack significant boon access like most other professions get.

Bazzoong.7145:

I am usually not prone to insulting strangers on the internet. But… Are you completely stupid steal is freaking great as it is.

When I read that axe whirl is the only decent steal I want to come and hit you, WITH A BLUNT SPOON.

All the stolen items are good, some are borderline overpowered especially if you trait steal and go trickery.

In addition you can get lots of valuable items form critters and mobs.

This thread is so depressing.

u misunderstand. srry but plz re read OP>. compare steal to other professions. it comes up short. it has about 33% of the productivity down to about 15% of others F mechanics. yup its true. yes we all love thegap closer and its nice. plus warrior whirl is nice (very VERY risky too) but still nothing in comparison to other classes

BFMV.3198:

I would like to see as either a thief elite or as an F2 profession skill something similar to Guild Wars 1 Shadow Form for assassins.

Maybe as an elite – X seoncds: Enemy Spells can not target you. Evade all attacks. You may still attack
As a profession skill. Evade all attacks for X seconds. Siphon X life from your foe whenever you successfully evade an attack

I would love to see something like this implemented to give evasion thieves something more to work with and a really good elite, although we do have some good elites already

I think this deservers a separate topic, would be nice to see a new elite that gives more evasive options. But not instead of steal, I like steal too much :P

I find steal very useful in fights, yes some of the stolen abilites are not that great but this is very situational. What I’d like to see is the ability for thieves to store stolen items F2+. Although this would need some sort of icd to prevent spamming. I don’t mind that I can’t plan/make a build around stolen abilities, makes me it more interesting for me when I have to improvise around each fight.

I was asked a couple months ago to get my guild a thief build that can burst down, and sneak around the enemy back line (wvw). I’ve looked around, asked some people I’ve played with before who know thief, and looked online (sadly, don’t judge). I’ve come across, between youtube and these forums, a guy by the name of Yishis(correct my spelling if you must).

I’ve watched his videos carefully, without any knowledge of his build other than that he is a power build. As good as he may play it (although tbh, his enemies are complete bafoons) he messes up. He is only human, but the reason I bring this up is WHY he messed up. He plans his attacks in stealth, and chooses who to steal from, the whole idea behind steal. Well numerous times, he was either missing steal, missing the stolen skill, getting himself near death, etc etc. Bottom line, it helped in some places, and hurt in others. That’s not how a professions skill should behave, especially if its something you can never swap out like a weapon set or a pet. I can understand you missing skill X because you sat in a blind field, but I can’t understand the concept when you enter a 2v1 and naturally you avoid stealing the engineer because for a power build, it doesn’t help you at all. What if its a 1v1 and you steal that engineer on a power build? For me, I just toss that gunk because it will only hurt my build more than help (trying to enter stealth, condition dmg is low, etc).,

With steal, the fight constantly evolves and you never truly get a set up you can count on. It’s a cool mechanic but alone, imo, its not up to par.

Nothing wrong with Toss Gunk – throw it at your feet and spam Dancing Dagger (Daggerstorm/Sneak Attack works good too) – bootleg AoE confusion, very powerful in 2v1 or in team fights on a point. Coincidentally (or not), pretty good to impede Engineer kit-spam.

Docherty.8372:

Nothing wrong with Toss Gunk – throw it at your feet and spam Dancing Dagger (Daggerstorm/Sneak Attack works good too) – bootleg AoE confusion, very powerful in 2v1 or in team fights on a point. Coincidentally (or not), pretty good to impede Engineer kit-spam.

Confusion on a power build is useless. Also dagger storm hits really odd and therefore most people can just move away and avoid a lot of attacks. You also risk being targeted by ground targeted AoE attacks, because you will be seen standing there. It’s not the best combo against people who are at this point well aware of profession mechanics.

Steal is enough because we have stealth.
/thread

(sarcasm…)
Also, could be better, but not fully complaining…

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: Yes, Steal is enough.

Zero Day.2594:

Steal is enough because we have stealth.
/thread

(sarcasm…)
Also, could be better, but not fully complaining…

Mesmer also has stealth^^

NinjaEd.3946:

Confusion on a power build is useless.

No, it isn’t. Confusion is never, ever, useless. Five Dancing Daggers (optimal) is good for 20 shared stacks with bounces, you think that’s of no value in a group fight? I dropped 9 stacks on a Ranger and his pet yesterday, should have seen him melt – I don’t even need the damage, I just need him to stop pressing buttons for a few seconds

So you’re a power build, great – that means you’ve got extra duration, bonus.

I’m trying to uplift you guys, give you an education in advanced Thievery, but fine, don’t use it – just throw it away, then come to the forum and whine about you got beat by some condi-spam Engi (ask them how much they enjoy having 5+ stacks while a full-DPS Thief is wailing on them) – I’m sure that’s a much better option.

p.s. you can totally still move while applying your finishers, the projectiles only have to travel through the gunk, not originate in it – use your noggin.

i shouldn’t have to trait to do something my skills says it does aka bountiful theft

Docherty.8372:

NinjaEd.3946:

Confusion on a power build is useless.

No, it isn’t. Confusion is never, ever, useless. Five Dancing Daggers (optimal) is good for 20 shared stacks with bounces, you think that’s of no value in a group fight? I dropped 9 stacks on a Ranger and his pet yesterday, should have seen him melt – I don’t even need the damage, I just need him to stop pressing buttons for a few seconds

So you’re a power build, great – that means you’ve got extra duration, bonus.

I’m trying to uplift you guys, give you an education in advanced Thievery, but fine, don’t use it – just throw it away, then come to the forum and whine about you got beat by some condi-spam Engi (ask them how much they enjoy having 5+ stacks while a full-DPS Thief is wailing on them) – I’m sure that’s a much better option.

p.s. you can totally still move while applying your finishers, the projectiles only have to travel through the gunk, not originate in it – use your noggin.

So you killed someone who didn’t understand confusion mechanics, that doesn’t make throw gunk 100% effective. Also you had to use an elite skill in combo with it to make it all all worthwhile. Most ranger use some ranged weapon so if they were honestly unable to react to confusion stacking and reflection then I can’t say ur method is reliable. My noggin is set on good players, not people who think 65 dmg on skill activation perstack is overwhelming in a 1v2+ (pets dont count as 2). Dagger storm is a great skill, but throw gunk isn’t always useful and somewhat disappointing when acquired. Also not all power builds go 10 into da, even if mug is a good trait, there are small variations in power thieves if you move away from hero builds.

simply and short: NO
long: if you dont trait into a class mechanic , simply ALL other classes have more Options , more skills, compared to the thief
a skill with 35sec CD which can simply be dodge/blocked/blind is simply USELESS and of curse MORE USELESS if you spend 30 Points in one trait Profession and fail again

solution:
one steal, getting 3 different skills (F2-F4) from each class (and NOOOOOOOO stealing a necro wont give you 3 fear….. )

My thoughts are made by tpvp, and not such wvw or pve childrens Play …..

NinjaEd.3946:

So you killed someone who didn’t understand confusion mechanics, that doesn’t make throw gunk 100% effective. Also you had to use an elite skill in combo with it to make it all all worthwhile.

Everyone in T2 WvW understands Confusion mechanics, few ever expect it to come from some Thief.

And while I mentioned Daggerstorm, Dancing Dagger is the ideal choice – every Confusion spammer comes to understand you need to ‘seal’ a stack by placing a longer-lasting condition on with it, the DD cripple stacks for big big duration and will have to be cleared before the Confusion can be shed, if you can throw a Mug in there for the Poison, even better.

I mentioned the Ranger because thanks to their pet they tend to eat every bounce, with a power build and two targets 5 DDs is good for ~10k damage per target, and 10 stacks of Confusion for each of them to hold (for dueling a solo Engi – halve it, ) – very easy in the forum to say “I totally understand Confusion – just stop attacking and cleanse”, in the heat of battle it tends to be a bit more complicated.

If it doesn’t work, don’t worry – it’s not the cornerstone of your build, just another arrow in the quiver.

I kill people like this every time I hit the field (49 on my first session this month, as a solo roamer – one every five minutes or so on average, 8k+ kills in WvW as a duelist in the top tiers says I know what the hell it is I’m talking about), like I said – you don’t have to take my advice – no skin off my nose, just trying to help.

To the OP, If you want steal can daze, poison, blind, stealth, steal boons, grant vigor, deal damage, and heal you on a 21 second CD.

Zelulose.8695:

To the OP, If you want steal can daze, poison, blind, stealth, steal boons, grant vigor, deal damage, and heal you on a 21 second CD.

You didn’t read the op i’m afraid. I’m well aware of steal traits, its not the intent of this thread to ask for more or less of those.

Top tier or not, you can’t say everyone is going to that option of using gunk. What if the thief has d/p and basilik venom or thieves guild? Headshot spam is a total waste of intiative, and #3 is only gana get 1 stack of confusion off before it moves you. If your goal was to surpress their condition removal so things like bleed can get through, then yes it works for condi builds which I already stated. But etheral fields are the last thing I care to get near my power build, because there are much more solid options. Whenever i see a potential group fight I avoid the stealing the engineer at all costs, because it simple isn’t helping me as much doing what I’m there for, picking off the weak ones with heavy hits. Wasting my time with a DoT that isn’t going to deal much damage 10 stacks or not just isn’t my priority.

Dancing dagger is great for picking off stragglers and using fields like ice, or static field, conditions that help me either stay on top of the enemy or hurt them more. Ill accept ur advice but not at all considering stepping into it, as it’d be a waste of time imho.