Guild Wars 2

I’ve put almost 3600 hours into my thief, and there was always something that made my skin crawl about it all the way back to when i was first reading the wiki about the class pre-launch. stealth. (Before anyone chimes in to flog it to death, no, it’s not OP once you actually wrap your mind around how it works.) However, as someone who has always played a stealth character in every game I’ve installed, has written a manual on how to hide without using any stealth mechanics for one of the games, and has taught numerous students in stealth across multiple games, stealth in GW2 was just downright offensive to the art form. It was so unbelievably unrealistic and gimmicky, and completely useless for anything real world stealth would be used for. It just plain wasn’t stealth. It was a cheap parlor trick that was a slap in the face to anyone that even had a slight clue how stealth really worked.

So, I began thinking up alternative systems. Originally, I had come up with a purely environmental system that operated off of a “ghost” mode, which removed the name tag over the character’s head, as well as the chat spam for the emotes. It changed the weapon slots to realistic stealth based “poses” (for lack of a better term) and put the onus on the player to learn at least basic knowledge of how stealth actually works to make efficient use of it. The drawback was that most people wouldn’t want to put in countless hours of study and practice, and would end up filing mass bug reports/complaints that the stealth system wasn’t working.

So, I went back to the drawing board. The biggest hurdle I had was that unless it was handled very very carefully, it would require a complete rewrite of the traits and skills. Which would be entirely too much work to be worth it at this stage. So it was important to keep as much as possible intact, while only changing the key factors. I operated mainly on memory of the traits, based on the thousands of hours I spent playing the class and tinkering with my build.

This is the first draft of what I came up with. If there are any problems I may have overlooked, please feel free to point it out. All I ask is that everything is done in a respectful and productive manner. Please leave any of the “OP NERF/L2P” banter to any of the other thousands of threads in this forum and others, and let’s stay focused on the topic at hand to help improve the game for everyone. Not just one side of the equation at the expense of the other.

(Continued)

Stealth mode
– 5 second cast time.
– moving during casting cancels the casting.
– no limit on stealth time BUT
– thief must remain stationary while in stealth mode
– moving while fully in stealth mode grants 10 second revealed debuff
– when in stealth mode, emotes (such as /sit, /kneel, and sleep) still function. however they do not broadcast in any chat channel whatsoever.

Blinding Powder
– grants 3-4 seconds of mobile stealth
– can be used in combat, on a 90 second cooldown
– and if the thief is moving when it expires they get the 10 second revelead debuff.

Shadow Refuge
– house symbol is removed
– circle remains
– grants stealth as it does currently, with the same movement limitations as blinding powder
– changed to an elite skill

WEAPON SETS
Dagger/Dagger (burst set)
– 1: auto attack/backstab, no change
– 2: heartseeker, no change
– 3: parry mode, works similar to nine-tailed strike where it blocks then counter attacks
– 4: throwing dagger, no change
– 5: new skill. grants 3 seconds of mobile stealth. costs 6 initiative. can be stacked with itself. causes 10 second revealed debuff once stealth expires due to any reason

Pistol/Pistol (condition set)
– 1: auto attack/sneak attack, no change
– 2: new unload, 3 shots from 1 pistol, each shot does minor damage and gives 1 stack of bleeding, costs 4 initiative
– 3: hail of bullets, works like a 2 second dagger storm with no defense buffs. costs 5 initiative
– 4: ankle shot, moderate damage, 5 second cripple, 3 initiative
– 5: new black powder, 5 second AoE burning, 3 second stealth, no longer a combo field, costs 6 initiative

Sword/Dagger (control set)
– 1: autoattack/tactical strike, no change
– 2: infiltrator’s strike, no change
– 3: flanking strike/larcenous strike, no change other than fixed evade pathing
– 4: throwing dagger, see above
– 5: new stealth skill, see above

Sword/Pistol (control set)
– 1: autoattack/tactical strike, no change
– 2: infiltrator’s strike, no change
– 3: postol whip, higher damage, no change otherwise
– 4: ankle shot, see above
– 5: new black powder, see above

Dagger/Pistol (burst set)
– 1: auto attack/backstab, no change
– 2: heartseeker, no change
– 3: shadow shot, no change
– 4: ankle shot, see above
– 5: new black powder, see above

Pistol/Dagger (condition set)
– 1: autoattack/sneak attack, no change
– 2: new unload, see above
– 3: shadow strike, does torment damage instead of burst damage
– 4: throwing dagger, no change
– 5: new stealth skill, see above

Shortbow
– no change at all

Rifle (new weapon, mostly theoretical)
– 1: autoattack/bayonette. 1200 range
– 2: 3 round burst – costs 4 initiative. moderate damage. 600 range
– 3: rifle butt – costs 3 initiative. 120 range, knockdown, light damage
– 4: piercing shot – costs 6 initiative, 1200 range, pierces, moderate damage
– 5: sniper shot – costs 10 initiative. heavy damage. 1500 range, 3 second cast time

a lot of writing effort to screw a profession…
luckily you’r not a dev.

Let me guess you are d/p Thief right ?
No seriously your change make 90% weapon setup unplayable and the only viable build would be d/p.

Stealth in GW2 is magical in nature. It comes from the illusion and deception schools of magic and that’s why other classes are unable to do it, except for mesmers which -not suprisingly- also have access to that type of magic.

Your system is good, for a low-magic setting. But since it’s not based in magic, then every class should be able to benefit from it. Your stealth mode would be applicable to every class, or is that thieves are able to crouch and hide their noses better than a warrior?

You want a realistic, tactical, stealth in a surrealistic, magical game.

Edit: And after reading your proposed skill changes, most of them make no sense at all, only sharing between them an unjustified, visceral, plain hatred to stealth.

I would like to see stealth moved off off the weapon sets, and into being incorparate into f1-f4 along with steal, so something like the below
f1- steal a portion of ure targets abilities (provides the grp buffs)
f2- steal a portion of the oponents health
f3- stealth
f4- backstab or eqivilant weapon in stealth attack

i would also like to see the power stat in deadly arts switched with malice in trickery.

– 5: new black powder, 5 second AoE burning, 3 second stealth, no longer a combo field, costs 6 initiative

Wow, if that isn’t OP, then I don’t really now.

– 4: ankle shot, moderate damage, 5 second cripple, 3 initiative

GG, Headhsot is one of the best skills a thief have, and you made it to worse version
of the allready pretty bad skill Dancing Dager…

Kyrion.2749:

Stealth in GW2 is magical in nature. It comes from the illusion and deception schools of magic and that’s why other classes are unable to do it, except for mesmers which -not suprisingly- also have access to that type of magic.

Your system is good, for a low-magic setting. But since it’s not based in magic, then every class should be able to benefit from it. Your stealth mode would be applicable to every class, or is that thieves are able to crouch and hide their noses better than a warrior?

You want a realistic, tactical, stealth in a surrealistic, magical game.

Edit: And after reading your proposed skill changes, most of them make no sense at all, only sharing between them an unjustified, visceral, plain hatred to stealth.

Engineers can stealth too.

You have 2 different kinds of Stealth? One, lets call it Stationary Stealth, that ends when moving, but has an otherwise indefinite duration and a Mobile Stealth that , I would assume, has a fixed, limited duration but does not end on movement. Revealed is only applied when moving under Stationary Stealth, or when moving when Mobile Stealth ends, but not, as it is not stated, when hitting and damaging targets, once in Mobile Stealth one could backstab, backstab, backstab, cloack and dagger, backstab, …repeat?

This system is god awful. Your “solutions” don’t actually make any sense.

Forcing us to remain stationary for stealth, destroying the weaponsets, 10 second reveal for being mobile while stealth ends? 10 second reveal for moving at all with “stationary stealth” We all know how long statues survive in pvp afterall.

What were you trying to achieve? Just permanently destroy the class?

Thief doesn’t need a rework, end of discussion.

Evilek.5690:

Let me guess you are d/p Thief right ?
No seriously your change make 90% weapon setup unplayable and the only viable build would be d/p.

you…. DO realize that 90% of the skills i have listed are exactly the same as they are currently, correct? aside from the rifle, i changed a total of 6 weapon skills. the rest are exactly as they are now.

and no. i don’t play a d/p thief.

frans.8092:

You have 2 different kinds of Stealth? One, lets call it Stationary Stealth, that ends when moving, but has an otherwise indefinite duration and a Mobile Stealth that , I would assume, has a fixed, limited duration but does not end on movement. Revealed is only applied when moving under Stationary Stealth, or when moving when Mobile Stealth ends, but not, as it is not stated, when hitting and damaging targets, once in Mobile Stealth one could backstab, backstab, backstab, cloack and dagger, backstab, …repeat?

an attack would count as movement, so it would give the revealed debuff, like it currently already does.

Renxian.6982:

This system is god awful. Your “solutions” don’t actually make any sense.

Forcing us to remain stationary for stealth, destroying the weaponsets, 10 second reveal for being mobile while stealth ends? 10 second reveal for moving at all with “stationary stealth” We all know how long statues survive in pvp afterall.

What were you trying to achieve? Just permanently destroy the class?

as i stated, the majority of the weaponsets are exactly the same as they currently are.

the way it would work would be you would use your mobile stealth to get to a hiding spot, let your stationary stealth take over while you hide there, then use your mobile stealth again to get into position for your backstab/sneak attack. so the gameplay would be similar to every single other game out there that makes use of stealth whatsoever.

Kyrion.2749:

Stealth in GW2 is magical in nature. It comes from the illusion and deception schools of magic and that’s why other classes are unable to do it, except for mesmers which -not suprisingly- also have access to that type of magic.

Your system is good, for a low-magic setting. But since it’s not based in magic, then every class should be able to benefit from it. Your stealth mode would be applicable to every class, or is that thieves are able to crouch and hide their noses better than a warrior?

You want a realistic, tactical, stealth in a surrealistic, magical game.

Edit: And after reading your proposed skill changes, most of them make no sense at all, only sharing between them an unjustified, visceral, plain hatred to stealth.

the stealth weapon skills would work similar to how they do now. a short term stealth used for positioning. which would still be magical in nature.

stealth is a skill that must be trained. some people train, and become good at it, while others (such as the warrior) spend their time training in other areas. thieves would spend their time training in stealth, and therefore would be better at it. as is represented by the stealth mode. which, since it would grant invisibility, would still be magical in nature.

I don’t use stealth at all, and I’m kicking butt. I am super-mobile, which is much better in the long run (I don’t pvp, though, so that is likely different).

Phantom.8130:

an attack would count as movement, so it would give the revealed debuff, like it currently already does.

So you can’t move at all? Then what’s your mobile stealth?
Why keep backstab if you’ll never be stealthed to land it anyway – seeing as you move when stabbing and thus are never stealthed when you hit. Not to mention that you’ll never be able to get into position to hit anyone when not being able to move.

Terrible ideas. Sorry, waste of everyone’s time.

the stealth weapon skills would work similar to how they do now. a short term stealth used for positioning. which would still be magical in nature.

You just said stealth ends when moving, so how exactly would one use stealth for positioning?

Good Ideas, although some things would need a rework.
The biggest advantage of stealth at the moment is the small time between stealths. If Thiefes would be longer visible, other classes have at least a chance to beat them up and it wouldn’t be that easy to finish a fight whenever a thief wants and requires more thinking from the thiefplayers.
I hope, Anet changes something soon, can’t see everyone running with d/p around, thief could be better than using just 1 strong build.

i applaud the effort but stopped after you said 5 sec cast time and stand still while casting. useless and makes thief 90% less potent at dmg. :P sorry. you would have to implement stealth a lil diff. maybe keep it the same but give it a faint outline or something. it hink its fine the way it is. you forget we are teh 2nd worst class although the most hated. hated bc people have pride and wanna beat us at 1 v 1 even those we cant do anything else :/

Kyrion.2749:

Stealth in GW2 is magical in nature. It comes from the illusion and deception schools of magic and that’s why other classes are unable to do it, except for mesmers which -not suprisingly- also have access to that type of magic.

Your system is good, for a low-magic setting. But since it’s not based in magic, then every class should be able to benefit from it. Your stealth mode would be applicable to every class, or is that thieves are able to crouch and hide their noses better than a warrior?

You want a realistic, tactical, stealth in a surrealistic, magical game.

Edit: And after reading your proposed skill changes, most of them make no sense at all, only sharing between them an unjustified, visceral, plain hatred to stealth.

dude…u just killed it….lol +1

Myrmix.5460:

Good Ideas, although some things would need a rework.
The biggest advantage of stealth at the moment is the small time between stealths. If Thiefes would be longer visible, other classes have at least a chance to beat them up and it wouldn’t be that easy to finish a fight whenever a thief wants and requires more thinking from the thiefplayers.
I hope, Anet changes something soon, can’t see everyone running with d/p around, thief could be better than using just 1 strong build.

well they would have to INCREDIBLY buff thievs to make them viable in pve….dungeons….WVW group play….spvp they are mediocre at best but still 2nd worst class overall…. they are good at 1 v 1 but that has no place in the game of any relevancfe so …. :P to kill / hurt their 1 v 1 (which is why we still play thief…ONLY reason) would kill the class. to kill a class = less revenue. sorry but if u look at it in economics they cant do much without buffing thieves first.

frans.8092:

Phantom.8130:

an attack would count as movement, so it would give the revealed debuff, like it currently already does.

So you can’t move at all? Then what’s your mobile stealth?
Why keep backstab if you’ll never be stealthed to land it anyway – seeing as you move when stabbing and thus are never stealthed when you hit. Not to mention that you’ll never be able to get into position to hit anyone when not being able to move.

Terrible ideas. Sorry, waste of everyone’s time.

the stealth weapon skills would work similar to how they do now. a short term stealth used for positioning. which would still be magical in nature.

You just said stealth ends when moving, so how exactly would one use stealth for positioning?

what? no. mobile stealth would work exactly how it does currently. you have 3 seconds to get into position to make your backstab. if it lands, you get the revealed debuff. with this, if it doesn’t land, you get the revealed debuff if those 3 seconds run out as well.

normal stealth ends if you move. however, you can use one of your mobile stealth skills to have up to 3 seconds of movement before it ends. either way, once stealth ends, you get the revealed debuff.

I think, in many things the thief need rly a complete overhaul.
E.g. in the mobility and hp pool, also should the dmg of BS reduce and the base dmg increase.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Thief doesn’t need a rework, end of discussion.

No Arguments inside, so your post can be ignored.

Myrmix.5460:

Good Ideas, although some things would need a rework.
The biggest advantage of stealth at the moment is the small time between stealths. If Thiefes would be longer visible, other classes have at least a chance to beat them up and it wouldn’t be that easy to finish a fight whenever a thief wants and requires more thinking from the thiefplayers.
I hope, Anet changes something soon, can’t see everyone running with d/p around, thief could be better than using just 1 strong build.

like i said, this is just a first draft. it’s definitely not a finished product, however it’s a starting point to build from. the point of me posting it here was to get an idea think tank going, so that it can be developed into a final product.

the weapon skills in particular are wide open for suggestions for alternatives. which is what i’m still holding out hope for.

Travlane.5948:

i applaud the effort but stopped after you said 5 sec cast time and stand still while casting. useless and makes thief 90% less potent at dmg. :P sorry. you would have to implement stealth a lil diff. maybe keep it the same but give it a faint outline or something. it hink its fine the way it is. you forget we are teh 2nd worst class although the most hated. hated bc people have pride and wanna beat us at 1 v 1 even those we cant do anything else :/

the time is just for the permanent stationary stealth, and can also be lowered if necessary. the mobile stealth would still be instant so that it can be used to capitalize on any opportunities the instant they present themselves.

Sorry but I can’t support this. It heavily favours the burst sets, but throws S/D Control under the bus.

Black Teagan.9215:

I think, in many things the thief need rly a complete overhaul, but not everywhere.
E.g. in the mobility and hp pool, also should the dmg of BS reduce and the base dmg increase.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Thief doesn’t need a rework, end of discussion.

No Arguments inside, so your post can be ignored.

I want him to give me a reason it needs a rework besides “giving other classes a chance” and “because this is how it works in other games”. Most other classes have a hard time dealing with thieves due to a lack of knowledge about the class and the stealth mechanic, and all it takes is some education to beat a good thief. We don’t need a rework because we work just fine, and the changes the OP wants to make are baseless and don’t synergize well.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Black Teagan.9215:

I think, in many things the thief need rly a complete overhaul, but not everywhere.
E.g. in the mobility and hp pool, also should the dmg of BS reduce and the base dmg increase.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Thief doesn’t need a rework, end of discussion.

No Arguments inside, so your post can be ignored.

I want him to give me a reason it needs a rework besides “giving other classes a chance” and “because this is how it works in other games”. Most other classes have a hard time dealing with thieves due to a lack of knowledge about the class and the stealth mechanic, and all it takes is some education to beat a good thief. We don’t need a rework because we work just fine, and the changes the OP wants to make are baseless and don’t synergize well.

two things.

first, if you check my posting history, you’ll see that i’ve been one of the people defending thieves since launch. stealth isn’t too difficult to counter once someone understands how it works. i’ve found that most people would rather complain than learn to counter it, even when someone is standing in lion’s arch offering to teach.

second, it’s not stealth. it’s a ridiculous parlor trick that has absolutely nothing to do with how stealth actually works. it’s a gimmick mechanic. take a chef from a 5 star restaurant to mcdonalds, and see what his reaction is. he would look at his big mac with disdain and say that’s its an affront to his profession. take anyone from the UFC to a tai-bo class and they’ll be horrified when they hear how many of the “students” there think they actually learned some self defense. like with cuisine and martial arts, stealth is an art form. the current “mcstealth” is an abomination. it’s a hideous insult that’s degrading to an entire art form.

I’m not a dev nor have any experience in game balancing so generally I ignore player’s ‘suggestions’ on how to balance a class…because most likely they don’t have a clue either, however, from a pve pov I agree 100%-the thief is just….meh. I’ve been fiddling with it for weeks trying to get something I feel is worthwhile but in every case I end up thinking ‘my guardian does this better without sacrificing x’ ‘my mesmer does this better’…it’s infuriating to say the least. However, steal at least is worthwhile if you trait for it and something I can look and go ‘alright-this is a good addition to a party that neither my guardian nor mesmer can do’. I wouldn’t mind them tweaking the mob encounters that use buffs to have longer durations and shorter recast times to make the skill a tad more useful but that’s about it.

Weakness? Good, but protection is better. Blind? Good, but between all the cleaving from melee mobs and lack of coordination in pug groups resulting in the mobs being scattered all over the place, it’s effectiveness is reduced imo. Smoke screen is decent enough-not as high profile as wall of reflection or feedback but ok. Venoms…..see player-scattering in pugs as mentioned above (for venom share)and uselessness of the actual venom effects (especially on trash mobs). Might on venom activation? Guardians with 15 into radiance and 5 into virtues would like to have a word with you…or simply bring a staff. You can deal good damage…but a warrior will do it safer while still being able to provide some sort of banner/shout support to the party. Traps…………obviously have no place in pve.

You could say the warrior is too pve oriented while the thief is too pvp oriented so when a player tries to use them in pvp/pve respectively you tend to run into problems (not saying that either is totally impossible, but you see a sharp decrease in effectiveness).

+1 for thief rework in some fashion
Edit: By ‘agree 100%’ I meant that a rework is in order-not with the actual proposed changes

Dual.8953:

Sorry but I can’t support this. It heavily favours the burst sets, but throws S/D Control under the bus.

if you have suggestions on how to improve s/d, i would be very open to hearing them. s/x should be the control set, so anything that would improve it to be so would be welcome.

Phantom.8130:

Dual.8953:

Sorry but I can’t support this. It heavily favours the burst sets, but throws S/D Control under the bus.

if you have suggestions on how to improve s/d, i would be very open to hearing them. s/x should be the control set, so anything that would improve it to be so would be welcome.

It’s tricky. S/D thrived on frequent access to Tactical Strike, which puts on one the opposite end of the spectrum to D/x builds. It’s focus was to try to daze as often as possible, like a more defensive, mobile version of S/P. What they may have to do is turn tactical strike into a much stronger CC skill then it already is. Like make it the CC equivalent of backstab. Anything else would be giving a greater benefit to one of the sets it shares skills with.
What could be done is making Stealth Skills determine the amount of revealed. Say make BS do 10 sec and Tactical Strike do 3 sec, and have 10 as the base for natural ending and non-stealth skills.

Phantom.8130:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Black Teagan.9215:

I think, in many things the thief need rly a complete overhaul, but not everywhere.
E.g. in the mobility and hp pool, also should the dmg of BS reduce and the base dmg increase.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Thief doesn’t need a rework, end of discussion.

No Arguments inside, so your post can be ignored.

I want him to give me a reason it needs a rework besides “giving other classes a chance” and “because this is how it works in other games”. Most other classes have a hard time dealing with thieves due to a lack of knowledge about the class and the stealth mechanic, and all it takes is some education to beat a good thief. We don’t need a rework because we work just fine, and the changes the OP wants to make are baseless and don’t synergize well.

two things.

first, if you check my posting history, you’ll see that i’ve been one of the people defending thieves since launch. stealth isn’t too difficult to counter once someone understands how it works. i’ve found that most people would rather complain than learn to counter it, even when someone is standing in lion’s arch offering to teach.

second, it’s not stealth. it’s a ridiculous parlor trick that has absolutely nothing to do with how stealth actually works. it’s a gimmick mechanic. take a chef from a 5 star restaurant to mcdonalds, and see what his reaction is. he would look at his big mac with disdain and say that’s its an affront to his profession. take anyone from the UFC to a tai-bo class and they’ll be horrified when they hear how many of the “students” there think they actually learned some self defense. like with cuisine and martial arts, stealth is an art form. the current “mcstealth” is an abomination. it’s a hideous insult that’s degrading to an entire art form.

That’s completely out of your opinion, and I highly doubt you’ve stood in Lion’s Arch offering to teach people how to counter thieves. I joined Team Legacy in November to better myself as a player and come out on top as an accomplished member of the guild wars 2 community. I’ve spent entire weeks without sleep in the TL teamspeak theorycrafting science builds and improvements to game mechanics which Freelancer and Bridger both conveyed in ToT, our weekly podcast. Several of our ideas made it in game in part to the fact that ToT was such a successful podcast, and also in thanks to the name TL once held. Stealth was one of the topics we revisited over and over, and stationary stealth was brought up several times due to its heavy limitations it would have on the class as a whole. Your 5 second stationary cast time wouldn’t synergize at all with your 2-3 second mobile stealth of blinding powder, and the reduction in stealth times out of stationary stealth would be attrocious to Shadow’s Rejuvination, and any build that relies on it. How do you expect this would bring balance to the class in sPvP and tPvP when already people spam their 1 skills until the chain goes through to determine where the thief is? No only that, but the duration of stealth from blinding powder, even when initiating the cast of stationary stealth would leave 2 seconds of being revealed thus showing our opponent exactly where our hiding place is.

Guild Wars 2 is all about mobile combat. You stop moving and you die, essentially. Why do you think the warrior’s 100 Blades is such a terrible move in PvP, yet so powerful? I acknowledge that your stationary stealth mechanic is no doubt powerful if you’re able to find a safe place and stay there infinitely, but this would suffer from the same fate as 100 Blades.

Moving away from stealth, your changes cater to burst, and more than less decrease build diversity in condition builds using dagger mainhand and sword builds that don’t rely on stealth (as well as the few “bunker” builds which are starting to pop up that use minimal if any stealth).

I’m sorry but having done the math behind the thief I see no good in any of this except to make burst players happy and cater to your own needs.

Viking Jorun.5413:

That’s completely out of your opinion, and I highly doubt you’ve stood in Lion’s Arch offering to teach people how to counter thieves. I joined Team Legacy in November to better myself as a player and come out on top as an accomplished member of the guild wars 2 community. I’ve spent entire weeks without sleep in the TL teamspeak theorycrafting science builds and improvements to game mechanics which Freelancer and Bridger both conveyed in ToT, our weekly podcast. Several of our ideas made it in game in part to the fact that ToT was such a successful podcast, and also in thanks to the name TL once held. Stealth was one of the topics we revisited over and over, and stationary stealth was brought up several times due to its heavy limitations it would have on the class as a whole. Your 5 second stationary cast time wouldn’t synergize at all with your 2-3 second mobile stealth of blinding powder, and the reduction in stealth times out of stationary stealth would be attrocious to Shadow’s Rejuvination, and any build that relies on it. How do you expect this would bring balance to the class in sPvP and tPvP when already people spam their 1 skills until the chain goes through to determine where the thief is? No only that, but the duration of stealth from blinding powder, even when initiating the cast of stationary stealth would leave 2 seconds of being revealed thus showing our opponent exactly where our hiding place is.

Guild Wars 2 is all about mobile combat. You stop moving and you die, essentially. Why do you think the warrior’s 100 Blades is such a terrible move in PvP, yet so powerful? I acknowledge that your stationary stealth mechanic is no doubt powerful if you’re able to find a safe place and stay there infinitely, but this would suffer from the same fate as 100 Blades.

Moving away from stealth, your changes cater to burst, and more than less decrease build diversity in condition builds using dagger mainhand and sword builds that don’t rely on stealth (as well as the few “bunker” builds which are starting to pop up that use minimal if any stealth).

I’m sorry but having done the math behind the thief I see no good in any of this except to make burst players happy and cater to your own needs.

actually, i HAVE stood in lion’s arch when i was on TC and extended the offer in /map when two people were talking about how OP stealth was. not a single person took me up on my offer. and yes, it is my opinion, but as someone that actually has knowledge in the field of study, it’s a highly educated opinion backed up by countless hours of practical application.

and, as i stated preciously. mobile stealth would be instant cast. the 5 second cast time is solely for stationary stealth, when someone is entering stealth from being visible. if they’re visible and running around, it takes 5 seconds to enter directly into stationary stealth. if they are already in stealth, then there’s no need for any cast times to initiate stealth. meaning, someone can move in short bursts and stay hidden. if they overextend, are forced to move, or they attack, then they end up exposed.

if you’ve done the math, then you realize that stealth already caters to burst. if you have suggestions to round out condition and control builds, by all means, feel free to include them in the conversation. as i said, this is just a starting point to build from.

Phantom.8130:

Viking Jorun.5413:

That’s completely out of your opinion, and I highly doubt you’ve stood in Lion’s Arch offering to teach people how to counter thieves. I joined Team Legacy in November to better myself as a player and come out on top as an accomplished member of the guild wars 2 community. I’ve spent entire weeks without sleep in the TL teamspeak theorycrafting science builds and improvements to game mechanics which Freelancer and Bridger both conveyed in ToT, our weekly podcast. Several of our ideas made it in game in part to the fact that ToT was such a successful podcast, and also in thanks to the name TL once held. Stealth was one of the topics we revisited over and over, and stationary stealth was brought up several times due to its heavy limitations it would have on the class as a whole. Your 5 second stationary cast time wouldn’t synergize at all with your 2-3 second mobile stealth of blinding powder, and the reduction in stealth times out of stationary stealth would be attrocious to Shadow’s Rejuvination, and any build that relies on it. How do you expect this would bring balance to the class in sPvP and tPvP when already people spam their 1 skills until the chain goes through to determine where the thief is? No only that, but the duration of stealth from blinding powder, even when initiating the cast of stationary stealth would leave 2 seconds of being revealed thus showing our opponent exactly where our hiding place is.

Guild Wars 2 is all about mobile combat. You stop moving and you die, essentially. Why do you think the warrior’s 100 Blades is such a terrible move in PvP, yet so powerful? I acknowledge that your stationary stealth mechanic is no doubt powerful if you’re able to find a safe place and stay there infinitely, but this would suffer from the same fate as 100 Blades.

Moving away from stealth, your changes cater to burst, and more than less decrease build diversity in condition builds using dagger mainhand and sword builds that don’t rely on stealth (as well as the few “bunker” builds which are starting to pop up that use minimal if any stealth).

I’m sorry but having done the math behind the thief I see no good in any of this except to make burst players happy and cater to your own needs.

actually, i HAVE stood in lion’s arch when i was on TC and extended the offer in /map when two people were talking about how OP stealth was. not a single person took me up on my offer. and yes, it is my opinion, but as someone that actually has knowledge in the field of study, it’s a highly educated opinion backed up by countless hours of practical application.

and, as i stated preciously. mobile stealth would be instant cast. the 5 second cast time is solely for stationary stealth, when someone is entering stealth from being visible. if they’re visible and running around, it takes 5 seconds to enter directly into stationary stealth. if they are already in stealth, then there’s no need for any cast times to initiate stealth. meaning, someone can move in short bursts and stay hidden. if they overextend, are forced to move, or they attack, then they end up exposed.

if you’ve done the math, then you realize that stealth already caters to burst. if you have suggestions to round out condition and control builds, by all means, feel free to include them in the conversation. as i said, this is just a starting point to build from.

I run a TL science build that’s a condition bunker reliant on stealth and Uncatchable to troll an entire team for in-stealth survivability. Stealth in itself doesn’t cater to burst because of the sheer amount of options for stealth that aren’t viable in burst builds. We’re finally getting to a nice niche with a multitude of practical builds for sPvP, so I don’t see the need for a rework. As I stated before, your other changes seem baseless and individualized with no synergy connecting them, possibly to only benefit you and screw everyone else who uses something that isn’t inherently burst, and if you truely believe that our mechanics already cater to burst then you’re not helping the class at all in creating build diversity.

Viking Jorun.5413:

I run a TL science build that’s a condition bunker reliant on stealth and Uncatchable to troll an entire team for in-stealth survivability. Stealth in itself doesn’t cater to burst because of the sheer amount of options for stealth that aren’t viable in burst builds. We’re finally getting to a nice niche with a multitude of practical builds for sPvP, so I don’t see the need for a rework. As I stated before, your other changes seem baseless and individualized with no synergy connecting them, possibly to only benefit you and screw everyone else who uses something that isn’t inherently burst, and if you truely believe that our mechanics already cater to burst then you’re not helping the class at all in creating build diversity.

i’m not sure why you’ve decided to take a rather demeaning tone, but it’s not going to make me bask in awe and go sulking away. (for the record “i was in a guild that had a podcast” doesn’t qualify you to create a stealth system in any way shape or form. seeing as how you’re claiming to have been part of the team that created this gimmick mechanic, it’s no surprise that you know how to create, in your own words, a “troll” build. which, once again, does nothing to add to your credentials. in fact, that shows clear ignorance of the actual subject matter entirely.)

once again, i will state that if you have any suggestions for improvements of this proposal, please state them. if not, then you have nothing of value to add to this conversation. nothing you’ve said so far has in any way been constructive. if you don’t feel what was listed has synergy, offer a suggestion on how to give it synergy. waving your kitten around, talking down to me, and then hurling insults does no such thing.

bottom line. step up, or step aside.

Dual.8953:

Phantom.8130:

Dual.8953:

Sorry but I can’t support this. It heavily favours the burst sets, but throws S/D Control under the bus.

if you have suggestions on how to improve s/d, i would be very open to hearing them. s/x should be the control set, so anything that would improve it to be so would be welcome.

It’s tricky. S/D thrived on frequent access to Tactical Strike, which puts on one the opposite end of the spectrum to D/x builds. It’s focus was to try to daze as often as possible, like a more defensive, mobile version of S/P. What they may have to do is turn tactical strike into a much stronger CC skill then it already is. Like make it the CC equivalent of backstab. Anything else would be giving a greater benefit to one of the sets it shares skills with.
What could be done is making Stealth Skills determine the amount of revealed. Say make BS do 10 sec and Tactical Strike do 3 sec, and have 10 as the base for natural ending and non-stealth skills.

hmm… i see two ways to go with this. one would be to give each stealth attack some measure of reduction to the revealed debuff. another would be to make it damage dependent, possibly working off of a percentage of the target’s health. (if they’re hit for 80% of their HP, there would be an 8 second debuff. there would need to be a minimum threshold for that though, so up to 30% for a minimum revealed of 3 seconds could work.)

I’m supporting the argument that Thief does not in fact need a rework. If you can’t handle a little criticism from an equally well versed and perhaps more experienced thief I’d suggest you not post such a controversial topic not expecting opposition.

Viking Jorun.5413:

I’m supporting the argument that Thief does not in fact need a rework. If you can’t handle a little criticism from an equally well versed and perhaps more experienced thief I’d suggest you not post such a controversial topic not expecting opposition.

so, in short, you’re not going to offer any suggestions for improvement, just wish to crap on the concept entirely, and continue to spout about how superior you are? and…. you expect to be taken seriously in a thread that was presented as a proposal, a think tank, and solely for improving the thief class for all sides of the equation?

you could have just said that up front and saved us both a lot of time.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Thief doesn’t need a rework, end of discussion.

qft

wish.1027:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Thief doesn’t need a rework, end of discussion.

qft

x 359823962 + 1

Why? No… just no…

I’m not going to actually give a post full of reasons why because 1. No, just no… 2. I can’t be bothered 3. It would take me an hour to do a write up on why this is so terrible.

However, I will say one thing:

Your notion that stealth in this game is an insult to stealth is ridiculous. Stealth in this game is how Anet decided to make it. That’s like saying that Guild Wars 2 is an insult to MMO’s because there’s no healing class. This is your opinion, and it’s entirely wrong. You can’t say that “this game mechanic is wrong, this game mechanic only works like this” because a game mechanic works however the kitten the developers want it to work.

No mate, just no.

EDIT: Lol @ your apparent belief that “troll builds” are somehow useless or unfair and not to be taken seriously.

This was a nice read. I find your opinion very interesting. In my opinion ‘thievery’ should be more about patience than annoying gameplay. People who think no rework is needed should realzie 70% thieves play the exact same skills (yeah it’s a rough estimation from my experience).

At the end of the day, what is the use for a class that brings more anger than fun in a videogame ?

Sidenote : no need to answer me, I won’t come in this thread anytime soon, I am just showing support to OP because too many people just show dismissal in this thread.

Incurafy.6329:

wish.1027:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Thief doesn’t need a rework, end of discussion.

qft

x 359823962 + 1

Why? No… just no…

I’m not going to actually give a post full of reasons why because 1. No, just no… 2. I can’t be bothered 3. It would take me an hour to do a write up on why this is so terrible.

However, I will say one thing:

Your notion that stealth in this game is an insult to stealth is ridiculous. Stealth in this game is how Anet decided to make it. That’s like saying that Guild Wars 2 is an insult to MMO’s because there’s no healing class. This is your opinion, and it’s entirely wrong. You can’t say that “this game mechanic is wrong, this game mechanic only works like this” because a game mechanic works however the kitten the developers want it to work.

No mate, just no.

EDIT: Lol @ your apparent belief that “troll builds” are somehow useless or unfair and not to be taken seriously.

alright, i’ll give this a shot….

to your two points, one. you are solely thinking in terms of video games. it’s almost like you’re discounting anything aside from what appears on your monitor. stealth exists in the real world as well, and it works absolutely nothing like the mcstealth in this game. games with good stealth mimic reality in their physics of the dynamic. games with bad stealth ignore reality and in turn to gimmick mechanics. much like how sports games mimic the physics and strategies of real life sports.

two, i never once said anything about troll builds being unfair. i’m not sure where you’re pulling that “information” out of, but you may want to do some fact checking with your source. however, i do feel that they are useless for the most part. how well can you troll NPC mobs in PVE? you can’t, they’re AI controlled and always follow the same scripted behavior. how well does it help you capture and/or defend objectives in WvW? not at all. you can gank random stragglers, but are unable to actually contribute to your server’s overall effort in any meaningful way. how well does it allow you to capture/defend objectives in SPvP? capture, you might just be able to help there. defense, not at all. you can’t contest a point while in stealth. you don’t have the defenses to stay alive if you’re not in stealth. your best bet is to try to be a distraction while the rest of your team does the heavy lifting.

Slimooze.3068:

This was a nice read. I find your opinion very interesting. In my opinion ‘thievery’ should be more about patience than annoying gameplay. People who think no rework is needed should realzie 70% thieves play the exact same skills (yeah it’s a rough estimation from my experience).

At the end of the day, what is the use for a class that brings more anger than fun in a videogame ?

Sidenote : no need to answer me, I won’t come in this thread anytime soon, I am just showing support to OP because too many people just show dismissal in this thread.

i completely agree that thievery should be about patience than annoying gameplay. survey the area, select your mark, wait for your opportunity, make the most of it when it presents itself, clear out of the immediate area to avoid being caught, move to your next surveillance point to restart the process until either you’ve killed everyone one by one or have been caught and killed yourself. succeed through making intelligent decisions or pay the consequences of making poor ones.

Phantom.8130:

Slimooze.3068:

This was a nice read. I find your opinion very interesting. In my opinion ‘thievery’ should be more about patience than annoying gameplay. People who think no rework is needed should realzie 70% thieves play the exact same skills (yeah it’s a rough estimation from my experience).

At the end of the day, what is the use for a class that brings more anger than fun in a videogame ?

Sidenote : no need to answer me, I won’t come in this thread anytime soon, I am just showing support to OP because too many people just show dismissal in this thread.

i completely agree that thievery should be about patience than annoying gameplay. survey the area, select your mark, wait for your opportunity, make the most of it when it presents itself, clear out of the immediate area to avoid being caught, move to your next surveillance point to restart the process until either you’ve killed everyone one by one or have been caught and killed yourself. succeed through making intelligent decisions or pay the consequences of making poor ones.

As nice as this sounds, the only place that really has any hope of warranting this kind of play is Solo Roaming in WvW, where your targets will be Dolyaks and other soloists. Stealth gameplay needs the entire game to be built around it to have purpose. GW2 isn’t built around stealth gameplay, aside from 1% of the PvE content, which isn’t surprising. Making a multiplayer game stealth based is enough of a pipe dream as it is. Making an MMO of it is pretty much impossible, because you’re trying to make players into aspects of a puzzle.
This is probably why stealth is the way it is in this game. If thief was designed the way you envision it, it’d be hands down the most useless class in this game, having to spend time planning out how to tackle content that every other class would just plow through. Every class needs to be able to participate in large scale fights.

Phantom.8130:

Slimooze.3068:

This was a nice read. I find your opinion very interesting. In my opinion ‘thievery’ should be more about patience than annoying gameplay. People who think no rework is needed should realzie 70% thieves play the exact same skills (yeah it’s a rough estimation from my experience).

At the end of the day, what is the use for a class that brings more anger than fun in a videogame ?

Sidenote : no need to answer me, I won’t come in this thread anytime soon, I am just showing support to OP because too many people just show dismissal in this thread.

i completely agree that thievery should be about patience than annoying gameplay. survey the area, select your mark, wait for your opportunity, make the most of it when it presents itself, clear out of the immediate area to avoid being caught, move to your next surveillance point to restart the process until either you’ve killed everyone one by one or have been caught and killed yourself. succeed through making intelligent decisions or pay the consequences of making poor ones.

That’s already a part of burst play. Your proposal would force players to have to do this in every part of the game and not just where it’s applicable.

Dual.8953:

As nice as this sounds, the only place that really has any hope of warranting this kind of play is Solo Roaming in WvW, where your targets will be Dolyaks and other soloists. Stealth gameplay needs the entire game to be built around it to have purpose. GW2 isn’t built around stealth gameplay, aside from 1% of the PvE content, which isn’t surprising. Making a multiplayer game stealth based is enough of a pipe dream as it is. Making an MMO of it is pretty much impossible, because you’re trying to make players into aspects of a puzzle.
This is probably why stealth is the way it is in this game. If thief was designed the way you envision it, it’d be hands down the most useless class in this game, having to spend time planning out how to tackle content that every other class would just plow through. Every class needs to be able to participate in large scale fights.

the thief, as it stands, is horrible in large scale fights. we can either share venoms then avoid as much combat as possible, or spam clusterbomb into combo fields then avoid as much combat as possible. maybe picking off a straggler here and there that gets separated from their group. aside from that, we’re actually discouraged to avoid large scale fights because we add very little to the group(less than any other class) while dying so easily.

hence the weaponsets i proposed. d/x = burst set, relies on heavy opener from stealth. p/x = condition set, relies on avoiding the enemy while their HP gets whittled down. s/x = control set, relies on keeping the enemy unable defend or counter attack. shortbow = AoE set, relies on spamming their AoEs at their feet. rifle = long ranged set, relies on hanging in the back, and selectively picking off enemies.

d/x would rely heavily on stealth, p/x would rely on mobility, s/x would rely on being able to chain CC. shortbow would rely on enemy positioning. rifle would rely on positioning and stealth, or positioning behind a group.

which would mean that d/x would work how i described in my previous post. p/x would work by having a few ways to apply condition damage, then surviving though teleports and evades and short term mobile stealth if necessary, as well as just general movement and dodges. s/x would work by having access to multiple forms of CC, as well as evasion/dodges for when an enemy uses a CC break. shortbow would work how it does now, 42222. the rifle would work like a sniper. which would result in multiple viable weapon sets for small, medium and large group play.

something to bear in mind, though, is that there’s a reason i continually asked everyone to offer suggestions. obviously, a lot of the weapon sets need refined. as i stated numerous times, it’s just a starting point to begin working from. nothing is set in stone, nor was ever presented to be. i was hoping the community would be willing to share their insight to improve the weapon sets. seeing that you were the only person to actually offer any suggestions whatsoever, the evidence points to me placing far too much faith in the community to actually be constructive as opposed to destructive.

Just because we don’t agree with anything you’ve suggested doesn’t mean that we’re being destructive toward the class. We’ve made thread after thread of our own opinions and suggestions, and the most positive reactions come from those which were accompanied by a lot of thought. Your perception of the class is obviously misconstrewn and you seem to expect us to have the survivability of a guardian, the AoE damage support if a staff ele and the condition application of a necro, which obviously we don’t have. Why do you think people run sigils of fire on P/P builds for zerg support? I’m sorry, but I’m going to stop posting after this. I can’t offer anything constructive when you defend your untainted opinion until death, and I can’t take it seriously. If suggest any further readers do the same and let the topic die.

I’m sorry to come off so mean, but honestly not much thought was put into this and you add more to it in each post which makes it hard for anyone to follow your exact vision. I’m sure it’s candy land in your mind, but from our unbiased perspectives it turns sour the more we read.

EDIT: your above post only shows how limited you want our class to be. “x/y weapon is specific to this playstyle” over and over. The beauty of our class is that we can run 10 different specs with the same weapons and different stats/traits. You sound like you want an entirely new game, not just for the thief. The beauty of GW2 is that we can do whatever we like if it fits our playstyle and we enjoy ourselves. You obviously seem to think that we need to force players into roles, which goes against everything this game stands for.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Just because we don’t agree with anything you’ve suggested doesn’t mean that we’re being destructive toward the class. We’ve made thread after thread of our own opinions and suggestions, and the most positive reactions come from those which were accompanied by a lot of thought. Your perception of the class is obviously misconstrewn and you seem to expect us to have the survivability of a guardian, the AoE damage support if a staff ele and the condition application of a necro, which obviously we don’t have. Why do you think people run sigils of fire on P/P builds for zerg support? I’m sorry, but I’m going to stop posting after this. I can’t offer anything constructive when you defend your untainted opinion until death, and I can’t take it seriously. If suggest any further readers do the same and let the topic die.

I’m sorry to come off so mean, but honestly not much thought was put into this and you add more to it in each post which makes it hard for anyone to follow your exact vision. I’m sure it’s candy land in your mind, but from our unbiased perspectives it turns sour the more we read.

i’ll be perfectly frank here. you’ve flat out invented what you believe my opinion is, and have been nothing but condescending throughout this entire thread. you have offered nothing of merit or value to the conversation, and have only habitually trolled it with several flat out insults.

considering that you missed the part where i stated (several times) that it was a first draft, a starting point to build off of, and the numerous requests for suggestions on improving what was written in the first post, it appears you haven’t even really been paying attention to what’s been written.

and i hope that you do stop posting, because absolutely nothing you have posted has even been remotely close to useful. no matter how many times you may deny it, it doesn’t change that. as i said before, step up or step aside. you flat out refuse to step up, so i respectfully ask that you step aside.

that being said, to those who actually do have suggestions for changes to the proposal presented in the first post, please voice them. what should be changed, and what should it be changed to?

poor quality trolling, bonus point for lots of typing, 3/10.

The multiple stealth mechanics, absurdly long cast time on stealth, utter requirement for */pistol or */dagger. A failure all around for team players, large group WvWers, group roamers… basically anyone who isn’t hunting as a lone wolf.

I like the way stealth works. Coming from other games, where stealth was not an integral part of combat, I find the GW2 system greatly preferable.
It seems to me your disagreement is based entirely on conceptual constructs, not practical gameplay – and what’s more, a conceptual basis that I disagree with. GW2 stealth is magical, it is theatric; it is disappearing in a bang of smoke and then reappearing with a flourish. It is not a stalk, stalk and stalk for hours and then strike! It is dramatic and dynamic.