Guild Wars 2

In the wake of the 2013 blog post, bringing in new skills is on the table at some point. Here is my initial thoughts on how Thief can be spiced up a little.

Remember, this is entirely concept-level. No doubt there are balance nuances to take in to account eg. cooldown lengths, statistical strengths, secondary abilities on each skill. The values are not going to be perfect, not even close. Just consider the concept without worrying too much about numbers, secondary effects etc. if you can.

This new type, Contacts, is inspired by Ambush and Thieves Guild. I felt that those two skills, apart from the boon stealing capabilities and Steal itself, made Thief feel like an actual Thief. Professional thieves are going to have contact with other thieves in the “business”.

Contact skills are high cooldown, incredibly potent Thief allies that provide different battlefield advantages depending on the type of ally called to assist you. They wear the same sort of equipment that Ambush and Thieves Guild summons do, with differences depending on the skill. Rather than being dependent on your stats, they have characteristics of their own, be it glassy, tanky or otherwise.

Thieves Guild would become a Contact type, and Ambush would cease to be a Trap and instead be a Contact. A different trap can be put in Ambush’s place. So, the Contact skills would be something like what follows.

Ambush (1s cast time, 60s cooldown):

Contact. Designate an area for your contact to ambush trespassing enemies, dazing them with the surprise attack before heavily incapacitating them. Chains to Rush.

Damage: Very High
Daze: 1.5s
Weakness: 5s
Blind: 5s
Radius: 600
Duration: 20 seconds

? Rush

Contact. Force your contact to finish the job, smashing the opponent across the face and knocking them out, dealing heavy damage.

Damage: High
Knockdown: 2s

This Thief is very glassy. Around the same health as a Fire Elemental. He wields Dagger/Pistol. He will not appear until a target enters the circle. As he comes out of the shadows, he fires a strengthened Headshot (the longer Daze) and then gets up close with Blind fields and the auto-attack chain (as fast as a player uses it, instead of the other Thief). The third strike deals the Weakness instead of Poison. He moves quite fast and uses Shadow Shot if the opponent gets too far away. Instead of the usual trap rectangle, you designate a big circle with 600 radius, and he always appears in the direct centre of the circle if terrain allows, which means he will usually follow up with Shadow Shot once he has dazed the target. The circle is not visible to foes. Rush is half of a Pistol Whip on steroids. Instead of a sword flurry, the Thief quickly advances forwards and hurls the end of the gun across the opponent’s face with immense force before he leaves.

Swindler (1s cast time, 60s cooldown):

Contact. Summon a swashbuckler contact who will steal boons from targets and share them with allies while distracting them. Chains to Plant.

Damage: Pitiful
Immobilise: 3/4s
Cripple: 5s
Duration: 20 seconds

? Plant
Contact. Your swindler takes conditions from allies and gives them back to the opponent. Ends business with the contact. Refreshes cooldown if used.

This Thief does almost no damage at all, but is very beefy, which goes nicely with his evasive skills. He wields Sword/Dagger and his main attacks are Infiltrator’s Strike (which has no Return component for him), with a shorter Immobilise, and Flanking Strike to Larcenous Strike, which has the same evade component and the same boon removal aspect, but he cannot spam it. The ICD of his boon stealing move is a few seconds or so, in between which he will throw a Dancing Dagger (that has no bounce component) or use IS depending on opponent’s distance and ICDs on those skills. If those are all on CD, he will do a dodge manoeuvre not unlike bandits in low level areas. If everything is on CD, he will simply whittle away with the Sword auto-attack chain, that has no conditions attached. I mention that Plant refreshes the CD because these kind of summoning skills in GW2 are active even as the cooldown ticks, so you will be forced to wait another 60 seconds if you want to use him again, instead of the 30-40 seconds if you just left him to do his work before departing naturally.

Duelist (1s cast time, 75s cooldown):

Contact. Summon a slippery duelist contact who will damage opponents from range with various types of ammunition. Chains to Tag Team.

Damage: Medium-High
Bleeding (3s): Medium
Chill: 5s
Poison: 10s
Torment (3 stacks): 5s
Range: 900
Duration: 20 seconds

? Tag Team (10s cooldown)

Contact. Swap places with your contact via shadowstep, blinding each destination.

Breaks stun
Blind: 5s
Radius: 180
Range: 1200

He spawns with Pistol/Pistol at maximum possible range from the target and fires off multiple Pistol shots. Each type of ammunition has individual cooldowns, and he will use them as soon as they are available. He also has a version of Unload available which augments already relatively high damage (though not as high as Ambush), usually used once he has put conditions down range or after he has shadowstepped. When a target gets within melee range, he will do a very telegraphed crouch and then shadowstep further away, which also has a cooldown attached. The bleeding is part of his normal attacks – the Poison, Chill and Torment are part of the cooldown ammunition. He’s not glassy, but not tanky like the Swindler either. He can take decent punishment, though.

Tag Team is where this one gets interesting. Naturally, it’s only usable if you can keep him alive, but it introduces a new dynamic of positioning with him.

Undercover (1s cast time, 90s cooldown):

Contact. Summon an elusive, medically trained Thief who will assist downed allies and bring them to safety. Chains to Shadow Puppet.

Damage: Low
Stealth: 3s
Regeneration: 5s
Stun: 1s
Blind: 5s
Range: 1200
Duration: 20 seconds

? Shadow Puppet

Contact. Your contact takes control of your target ally, bringing them back to their feet for a period of time. Fully revives the target ally if they kill a foe. Increases cooldown of Undercover to 120s.

Duration: 15s
Range: 1200

This Thief uses a Shortbow by default (which still has bounces), and has a number of ways to assist allies. If there is a downed ally within range, the first thing he will do is activate a Blinding Powder and shadowstep directly to them, beginning the revival process. However, if the Thief takes damage, or the ally is taking damage rather quickly, he will instead Shadow Return, taking the ally with him, to the player, where both of you can revive him/her. If a foe is in the vicinity after he has already used Shadow Return, he will smack them with the main part of his bow, stunning them, but the revive will not be interrupted. The Blinding Powder itself has a low-ish cooldown, and he will use it immediately upon activation and then whenever he can after that. Allies affected by the Blinding Powder get the 5s of Regeneration, regardless of whether they have the boon already, unlike Shadow Protector. The Thief himself is very weak, offensively and defensively.

Thieves Guild (2s cast time, 240s cooldown):

Contact. Call more Thieves to support you in combat.

Duration: 30 seconds

This elite now summons the Thieves from Ambush, Swindler and Duelist, and they last longer. No secondary effects (chains), obviously.

So those are the sort of skills I’m thinking of. What about traits? Where would they go? I leave that sort of thing up to someone else. However, I think traits like these would fit well for the utility set:

Fine Print: Contacts will hang around for longer (10 seconds more), and cooldowns are reduced by 20%. (Master or Grandmaster I would imagine)

Mob Mentality: Endurance regeneration increased by 50% for all nearby allies while a Contact is active

Security: Contacts have increased health and armor by (insert value)%.

And other traits in the same vein.

So remember, numbers are totally placeholder – not much consideration at all has gone in to them. Think on the concept level. Thanks for reading if you got this far.

I have to admit: at first I thought this would end in something like a “this is only helpful in WvW” suggestion because in PvE thieves mostly behave like ranger pets – they die instantly.
But I really like your ideas and I enjoyed reading them – you have my respect^^
Especially the undercover thief will offer us a great group support.

IMO other useful traits could be something like
- AoE blinding or group stealthing on dying
- grandmaster: 180s cd you have a (insert number)% chance to summon one more thief with a contact skill

May I translate it into german? I would like to post it in our forum in your name

The only problem I really see is that this is pretty close to mesmer phantasms. Mesmers get phantasms on weapon skills usable on short cooldown, while thieves get stealth on weapon skills. They have a utility that gives them stealth and an elite that gives them stealth on a long cooldown. We get a similar version of the elite on a shorter utility cooldown traitable to even shorter and a phantasm trap (i.e. shadow trap) and elite phantasms on a long cooldown (thieves guild). Instituting a change like this would really blur the two classes together a little too much.

This sounds absolutely fantastic. Minionmaster Thief here I come.

Maugetarr.6823:

The only problem I really see is that this is pretty close to mesmer phantasms. Mesmers get phantasms on weapon skills usable on short cooldown, while thieves get stealth on weapon skills. They have a utility that gives them stealth and an elite that gives them stealth on a long cooldown. We get a similar version of the elite on a shorter utility cooldown traitable to even shorter and a phantasm trap (i.e. shadow trap) and elite phantasms on a long cooldown (thieves guild). Instituting a change like this would really blur the two classes together a little too much.

:) god forbid our thieves do 75% of the dmg just like mesmer clones :P

I allways wanted to go a thief lord build great idea, i reccomend taking this in suggestion forum.

Nice idea but do we need more pet builds into this game…