Guild Wars 2

what most ppl forget is we already have p/p set which is unused even with DD
so if some of you suggest to “cripple” the rifle you are crazy just because it might have 300 range more.

p/p is unused cause of the many blocks reflect and boons spamm which we having atm.

another range weapon for a thief wont solve it unless they give him the ability to counter it.

pp afraid from high dmg burst from a thief. d/p thief can take 90% of your hp if he attack at the right moment after you used your stunbreak just with basilisk.

the only thing sniper should have is less swiftness and DD will solve it. as oyu cant use both trait line.

also some say to put a marker on your head if a thief targeting you. what is i choose the trait line and take d/p and why shouldnt other class with access to stealth will get the same like mesmer, engi and ranger…. also for above average player if he sees a thief around he should get ready. so for new player its will be l2p issue.

there is no doubt thief need range weapon.
there is no doubt d/p has been the meta too long
there is no doubt p/p even with might stack and huge dmg still crappy.

what most ppl forget is we already have p/p set which is unused even with DD
so if some of you suggest to “cripple” the rifle you are crazy just because it might have 300 range more.

Again, P/P is currently underused because it does not have the traits needed to support it in the current meta. If they add Rifle, I would expect traits that allow it to do whatever role it has well.

Let’s just throw out an example, I’m not saying this is the way they should go, but a way that they could, what if Thieves could bunker a point? What if there were traits in the spec that made a Thief so facetanky that a Thief could capture a point, hold it 1v1 indefinitely, hold it 1v2 or even 1v3 for long enough for his team to back him up, etc.? You guys don’t seem to be understanding that it’s possible for a thief to fill any role other than as a +1 or decapper, but they obviously can, IF they have the traits to back that build up.

pp afraid from high dmg burst from a thief. d/p thief can take 90% of your hp if he attack at the right moment after you used your stunbreak just with basilisk.

Sure, but at least he’s then right next to you and you can more easily retaliate. Also he has to get close in the first place, which means opening himself up for traps. From the target’s perspective, backstabber Thieves are already annoying enough, being able to do so without ever coming within 1200 range is even moreso. They need to be careful in figuring out how to make it seem more fair to both sides.

also some say to put a marker on your head if a thief targeting you. what is i choose the trait line and take d/p and why shouldnt other class with access to stealth will get the same like mesmer, engi and ranger…

I’m not talking for all attacks, obviously if you just have a target selected they shouldn’t get a ping over their head. All I meant is that there should be a “big hit” attack, and that move should have a decently long casting time, and during that casting time, the target you have selected should have a marker over his head so that he can react to the attack, even if he doesn’t know where you are.

Again, this would allow him to avoid the damage, yes, but it would also force him to act if he want to do so.

why rifle should be sustain on point or point holder? its range common
also anet already several times state thief is fast +1 class and hardly will be support or tanky

to be good with rifle thief will need unblockable attacks simple as that. other wise it will be same as p/p

messiah.1908:

why rifle should be sustain on point or point holder? its range common
also anet already several times state thief is fast +1 class and hardly will be support or tanky

to be good with rifle thief will need unblockable attacks simple as that. other wise it will be same as p/p

There’s no reason an elite couldn’t make the profession more capable of holding points.

P/P’s not amazing in this sense since BV can’t apply to a whole unload. Granted, BV stunning any channeled block will interrupt it and drop the opponent’s block for the rest of the Unload, which has the second highest skill damage available to the thief.

If you add more to it with such a low-risk weapon bursting in a single skill (within the confines of BV), it leads us into “Unblockable ranged nuke from stealth on a highly-mobile class” – and I see that as pretty bad design.

Ohoni.6057:

I don’t buy in to the idea that a Thief must be as mobile as possible to be competitive. Yes, the current Thief meta tactics rely on mobility to zip around, decap empty places, +1 fights out of nowhere, etc., but there’s nothing that says that this is the only way that a Thief can ever contribute to a team. If the new Spec is worse than DD at doing what Thieves currently do, but is better at providing Thieves some other role on the team that is also valid, then players would have no issue choosing the style that they enjoyed best.

It’s not just the existing meta but a design in how the profession works such that it’s the only thing it has going for it. There’s a reason almost every pro team dropped thief for rev; the mobility wasn’t good enough and its +1’s are worse. Teams need a decap player, and ANet balances the thief to be capable of that role.

There’s never going to be another role unless the profession is massively buffed into being blatantly OP, or forced into combat in a different context that doesn’t allow for stealth and resets or some major cost. The reason the thief can’t do anything else is because it’d be too overpowered to allow for something like a point-holding durable guardian get more mobility, better burst, and stealth on demand. A sniper isn’t going to do anything at all for the thief except make it +1 in a different way, which is going to be worse than what the Daredevil offers because the thief needs to both +1 and decap points, which the entire concept of the sniper would presumably fail to achieve. So unless they make the sniper just as mobile (if not more to compensate for poor +1, since projectiles are generally weak at the moment), and make the spec astronomically more durable than it needs to be, it won’t be used since the Daredevil is going to provide better mobility, more consistent +1, and better escapes/defenses.

Ohoni.6057:

And I assert that without such an ability, there’s just no point to the concept at all. It would be like if they gave Warriors Greatsword, but only as a soft condi, support heavy option with no real DPS to speak of. It’d just defeat the entire purpose. So I think there should be no question whatsoever of if the Sniper build should have at least one “huge damage on a single ability,” that should be taken as a given. The question is what to do to balance that ability with the rest of the class in a way that’s fun for Thief players and also tolerable for everyone else.

This massive burst shouldn’t be the only tool in the Sniper’s kitten nal, they should have plenty of other things they can do during a fight, but it is the most iconic and necessary.

And I assert there’s no point to the concept at all. Ranged burst from stealth is bad design no matter how you look at it. Even the indicator would make the profession way too easily shut down by competent players, and it’d wreak all sorts of havoc on the less experienced ones. We’re seeing the same thing from DH right now. Why would you want the thief to be in this spot, since it’s inevitably going to result in either hard counters to the profession or nerfs?

Of course it’s not the only tool, but when such a ridiculously strong mechanic is used as a weapon skill, you need to balance the entire rest of the elite around it. Tell me, specifically, what those tools should be. Come up with the design, and I’d more than happily point out every little flaw and issue with it until either it’s perfect or you recognize that the design isn’t actually good. With this kind of ability, you effectively pigeon-hole yourself into compromising the specialization for all other weapons except the featured one. Then if you put it on the mechanic, what’s the point in using rifle at all, exactly? As then you’d have better melee with D/P and even more absurd resets on shortbow alternate. Now you need to re-balance and re-design with these possibilities in mind. I’ve gone through this process repeatedly already when I laid out the design for my proposal. Stealth sniping while originally on the list of possibilities, had to be immediately nixed for more balanced, interesting, and quite frankly, more fun gameplay for everyone involved. Get in the mindset of other professions and playing against the elite right now as whatever you play. Now consider playing against it only as a core-game build. Does it seem fair? If not, keep trying over.

Ohoni.6057:

If they can’t get that much right, then they shouldn’t bother with Rifle at all.

So basically you’re saying if they don’t make the spec a 1500-ranged-gunflame sniper, the rifle shouldn’t be used at all for an elite spec, ever? Seems ridiculous to me.

why rifle should be sustain on point or point holder? its range common
also anet already several times state thief is fast +1 class and hardly will be support or tanky

“Let’s just throw out an example, I’m not saying this is the way they should go, but a way that they could, "

It’s not just the existing meta but a design in how the profession works such that it’s the only thing it has going for it. There’s a reason almost every pro team dropped thief for rev; the mobility wasn’t good enough and its +1’s are worse. Teams need a decap player, and ANet balances the thief to be capable of that role.

Sure, in vanilla, in Daredevil, but there’s absolutely no reason that Sniper couldn’t be balanced towards a different role, nor that one of the other classes couldn’t get an elite spec that was designed to be capable of decapping. It’s kind of lame when either a class can only do one think well no matter how you build it, OR that there is a task that one class does way better than anyone else, much less both at once.

Again, the buffs/debuffs would occur as part of the Spec design, so people that love to play Thieves as they are could continue to do so as a vanilla or DD Thief, but the new spec would open up a completely different option. I think that if they try to make anything that just does what the DD does, it will fail or be OP.

The reason the thief can’t do anything else is because it’d be too overpowered to allow for something like a point-holding durable guardian get more mobility, better burst, and stealth on demand.

Obviously, but what if the “point holding guardian” version of the Thief did not have as much mobility or stealth as a vanilla Thief? What if the increased tankiness came at the cost of reducing those options a bit? You could choose to become better at facetanking, by giving up some of your evasiveness.

And I assert there’s no point to the concept at all. Ranged burst from stealth is bad design no matter how you look at it. Even the indicator would make the profession way too easily shut down by competent players, and it’d wreak all sorts of havoc on the less experienced ones. We’re seeing the same thing from DH right now. Why would you want the thief to be in this spot, since it’s inevitably going to result in either hard counters to the profession or nerfs?

Then no rifle for the Thief, but we are talking about the Thief maybe getting a rifle, so that’s the boundaries of the discussion.

Then if you put it on the mechanic, what’s the point in using rifle at all, exactly? As then you’d have better melee with D/P and even more absurd resets on shortbow alternate.

Clearly the Rifle would need to stand on its own to some degree, but you would still have a second weapon available, and the answer is that you would use the Rifle in situations where it’s tools were useful, and swap it out in situations where other tools would be better. I don’t particularly count on players to continue using Rifles while based, but it should provide them with a significant advantage in most fights at the beginning or end of the battle.

So basically you’re saying if they don’t make the spec a 1500-ranged-gunflame sniper, the rifle shouldn’t be used at all for an elite spec, ever? Seems ridiculous to me.

Yes. Exactly that. Or at the very least, it should come in behind 2-3 other weapon options available. The entire appeal of Rifle for the thief is as a Sniper, someone who posts up and causes massive damage and disruption to the opposing team from maximum distance. I have less than zero interest in any sort of “shotgun” or “dartgun” Thief, and would view that as a complete waste of the weapon’s potential.

In essence, then you have a very narrow view of what you think the rifle should do conceptually and there’s no sense in arguing the merits of whether or not it could even be feasibly implemented.

And for the tradeoffs to make it play differently, I’d love to see details. So far all I see is stealth-nuke-gunflame being said. That will do literally nothing for the profession. It’s non-constructive because unless there are added layers of depth while somehow compromising core thief functionality (I.E. also deadlocking the profession into the specialization weapon and a style of play in particular, likely shutting down certain trait lines) but still allowing all builds to work, then the idea in its entirety is nil.

I have no interest in a shotgun-style idea, but only for mechanical reason in that mid/close-range is something that the profession already has an excess of, and 1200 range is something it could use. It wouldn’t be a gameplay or balance concern. I just don’t have any interest because I don’t really see what dynamic it would add to the thief. I wouldn’t care if they gave us a longbow for 1200 range and then a shotgun spec in another (i personally view this more suitable for the ranger, though, as some kind of “Big Game Hunter” spec or something, but that’s just my opinion). I don’t want or need to be a sniper, and so far the only suggestions for implementation have been either contradictory, overpowered, and/or gimmicky.

Your opinions for calling the entire appeal of the rifle as being a long-range sniper are your own perceptions and only your own perceptions. Conversely, I have absolutely zero interest in the prospect of nuking from range. It basically would take the build I play right now and merge it into some easy long-range burst combo spec. No thanks, I’d rather see people earn their damage by taking risks.

If you’re only going to ever be sold on a 1200+ range “Sniper” stealth-burst concept, there’s no sense in even trying to debate whether or not it’s a good idea because regardless of the evidence presented, there’s no convincing you, otherwise. Without a full design to tear apart, the only thing that can be said is that it’s not good design for the many reasons stated earlier in this thread.

One thought that’s crossing my mind:

ArenaNet did say in development that their goal was that every profession should be able to play every role. Granted, that was a) more aimed at PvE, and b) has been compromised a bit at the moment by elite specialisations pushing professions into roles according to what their elite specialisation does, but it might still be a long-term goal to achieve this through offering a variety of elite specialisations aimed towards different roles.

This might actually be part of the reason they gutted Acrobatics to make room for Daredevil: because a thief with the original Acrobatics might have been regarded as too mobile to possibly be balanced as anything other than a +1er and decapper. With Acrobatics weakened, core thief may be something they regard as having potential to be shifted into other roles without also being awesome at mobility roles. You’ll probably never see thieves being as good at point-holding as, say, dragonhunters, but it’s possible that a new elite specialisation could push them into a role similar to revenants: still highly mobile, but with a bit more weight behind that mobility.

i guess you didnt see ROM playing LB ranger and staff. using stealth and BOOM kill a thief in SECONDS . OP not at all he is so squishy …

YES hes used stealth
yes hes used kite and placement
yes he used range
and he got good cleanse, mobility , most of the boons and might stacks buff high

why cant thief used those for his advantage

if a thief get rifle it should be unique and not like ranger as sniper ranger is better than thief atm.

with rifle and SB (mobility) we cannot stack stealth unless we have one skill which give stealth (doubt it)
thief dont have good condi cleanse at all. and he is account on it mobility and evade (DD) so rifle need good condi handle or still have good evade skills

sniper is not fast he is stealthy . so i vote for 1 skill or mechanism which put us in stealth
like f1 and f2
when pressing f1 you get in stealth and when pressing f2 you fire sniper shot
this mechanism will serve both as defense and offense
1500 is must to compete with ranger.
the rifle skills can be bit supportive and than he can be +1 support and dmg

like fire net which block attack for 2 sec in the area
fire smoke screen which blind foes in the area
1 evade skills
etc..

In essence, then you have a very narrow view of what you think the rifle should do conceptually and there’s no sense in arguing the merits of whether or not it could even be feasibly implemented.

I have a very narrow definition of what would be satisfactory for a Rifle Thief weapon, and just as I would be dissatisfied if Warrior had the Mesmer implementation of a Greatsword, I would be immediately dissatisfied with any Rifle implementation for the Thief that was not in a Sniper-based role. If they cannot successfully implement a sniper rifle then they should not attempt to implement the Rifle as a Thief weapon at all, at least until numerous better weapons were added. I would much rather the XPac2 Thief spec be based around some other weapon than to have a completely unsatisfactory Rifle spec.

And for the tradeoffs to make it play differently, I’d love to see details. So far all I see is stealth-nuke-gunflame being said.

You should read the thread, I’d be happy to answer any questions you may have, but I will not repeat myself because you cannot be bothered to read what has already been written.

Your opinions for calling the entire appeal of the rifle as being a long-range sniper are your own perceptions and only your own perceptions.

I don’t believe that to be true, and that is not the premise under which I operate, but you’re welcome to your own position on the matter.

If you’re only going to ever be sold on a 1200+ range “Sniper” stealth-burst concept, there’s no sense in even trying to debate whether or not it’s a good idea because regardless of the evidence presented, there’s no convincing you, otherwise.

I thought that much went without saying. The long range DPS element is the one indispensable gameplay mechanic of giving a Rifle to a Thief. If a Thief can’t use a Rifle to headshot at long distances then a Thief should not have a Rifle. All other elements of the design are to determine how to achieve that objective in a way that is fun for the Thief and acceptable to everyone else, and if that cannot be achieved, then move on to some other weapon.

Does it have to be headshotting per se?

There are other potential ways a ‘sniper’ theme could be done without being built around headshots. Thief is a relatively techy profession, probably second only to the engineer in that respect, so it could potentially have fire support options that aren’t just ‘big damage’. Maybe, for instance, the rifle thief has their rifle customised to fire a lighter round in exchange for being quieter, so they’re not trying to smash through someone’s helmet and skull to kill them with a single headshot – instead what they’ve got is more of a high-velocity poison dart rifle which has its effect more through conditions. Now, a long-range condi thief would still be annoying, but there is counterplay – condi cleanse, healing before the conditions bring you down, and so on – which there wouldn’t be for a single big hit.

Another possibility could be a less powerful form of the Pale Reaver rifles – firing a volley of shots instead of just one, so it has a similar potential for counterplay as against a longbow ranger.

Ohoni.6057:

It’s not just the existing meta but a design in how the profession works such that it’s the only thing it has going for it. There’s a reason almost every pro team dropped thief for rev; the mobility wasn’t good enough and its +1’s are worse. Teams need a decap player, and ANet balances the thief to be capable of that role.

Sure, in vanilla, in Daredevil, but there’s absolutely no reason that Sniper couldn’t be balanced towards a different role, nor that one of the other classes couldn’t get an elite spec that was designed to be capable of decapping. It’s kind of lame when either a class can only do one think well no matter how you build it, OR that there is a task that one class does way better than anyone else, much less both at once.

Again, the buffs/debuffs would occur as part of the Spec design, so people that love to play Thieves as they are could continue to do so as a vanilla or DD Thief, but the new spec would open up a completely different option. I think that if they try to make anything that just does what the DD does, it will fail or be OP.

The problem with thief, and elite specs is no matter what you add to class from an elite spec, your still left with 2/3 of base class. The entirety of thief so far, including dare devil is based around +1 support and mobility in a pvp context. No matter what anet introduces, you cannot escape base thief. Anet has decided that thief is fine in its current roll which put up a road block on any kind of role change. Simply put rolls for thief will not change until rest of base thief changes, as we don’t have the support to play any other roll other than our current one.

Eval.2371:

Ohoni.6057:

It’s not just the existing meta but a design in how the profession works such that it’s the only thing it has going for it. There’s a reason almost every pro team dropped thief for rev; the mobility wasn’t good enough and its +1’s are worse. Teams need a decap player, and ANet balances the thief to be capable of that role.

Sure, in vanilla, in Daredevil, but there’s absolutely no reason that Sniper couldn’t be balanced towards a different role, nor that one of the other classes couldn’t get an elite spec that was designed to be capable of decapping. It’s kind of lame when either a class can only do one think well no matter how you build it, OR that there is a task that one class does way better than anyone else, much less both at once.

Again, the buffs/debuffs would occur as part of the Spec design, so people that love to play Thieves as they are could continue to do so as a vanilla or DD Thief, but the new spec would open up a completely different option. I think that if they try to make anything that just does what the DD does, it will fail or be OP.

The problem with thief, and elite specs is no matter what you add to class from an elite spec, your still left with 2/3 of base class. The entirety of thief so far, including dare devil is based around +1 support and mobility in a pvp context. No matter what anet introduces, you cannot escape base thief. Anet has decided that thief is fine in its current roll which put up a road block on any kind of role change. Simply put rolls for thief will not change until rest of base thief changes, as we don’t have the support to play any other roll other than our current one.

What if every Elite Spec locked classes out of certain Coee class Abilities/traits? Would be interesting to see, so they balance everything on an individual basis instead of having to nerf the core specs.

Wow, some interesting convo. Didn’t expect this to turn into a 4 pager.

Just to add 2 more coppers to it, I don’t think we’re going to see this Sniper aspect. Thief is already thought of as a bursting class. You need to look at what other roles that are either missing or slacking from thieves. I think we’re going to see a support role personally, which would mean no high damage weapon.

That being said, I’d like to see an elite that concentrates on stealth.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Wow, some interesting convo. Didn’t expect this to turn into a 4 pager.

Just to add 2 more coppers to it, I don’t think we’re going to see this Sniper aspect. Thief is already thought of as a bursting class. You need to look at what other roles that are either missing or slacking from thieves. I think we’re going to see a support role personally, which would mean no high damage weapon.

That being said, I’d like to see an elite that concentrates on stealth.

Please no then they will gut SA even more like what they did to Acro,

Does it have to be headshotting per se?

Ideally? I’m somewhat flexible on it, but I think the basic thematic concept is important. A “thiefy rifle user” is one who would attack from the sidelines with precision, taking out the enemy forces.

And of course the high damage single attack wouldn’t be the ONLY tool in the kitten nal (which apparently the forum will consider a curse word), but it should be in there someplace. And I think that a massive damage long range attack is absolutely essential for PvE Thief, so it needs to be there, but as I said fairly early in the thread, I could see a clear PvE/PvP split there, where they tone down the direct damage of the attack if they can’t balance it otherwise, so that it’s less vital to a PvP strategy.

instead what they’ve got is more of a high-velocity poison dart rifle which has its effect more through conditions. Now, a long-range condi thief would still be annoying, but there is counterplay – condi cleanse, healing before the conditions bring you down, and so on – which there wouldn’t be for a single big hit.

That could be in there, but shouldn’t be the endall. And I would go with bleed rather than poison, have a shredder round that really causes some damage. But so how would that do, have the PvE Thief be based around having a high cost, slow, high Power damage attack, and then also have a relatively weaker spammable shot that has a bleed to it, but not super vital to use often. But then in the PvP version, the Power shot would be toned down, less useful, while the bleed shot would be buffed up to have an equivalent, if slower acting impact.

Still though, we already have Pistol with it’s bleeding spammable shot, so it just seems a bit redundant to me.

Another possibility could be a less powerful form of the Pale Reaver rifles – firing a volley of shots instead of just one, so it has a similar potential for counterplay as against a longbow ranger.

I don’t see a volley of shots as being superior to a single shot in terms of counterplay. Maybe the split second between the first hit and the last would be enough for expert players to put up a defense, but it wouldn’t amount to anything in lower tier play, which is where most of the complaining comes from. Again, if the goal is to promote counterplay, I really think that the best option is to put a sniper marker over the target’s head when you power up the big shot.

I was also thinking of a way to have counter-counter play, by having some element in which either you could “fake out” enemies by having a second, weaker attack that also procs the sniper marker, or by having a second attack that punishes defenses in some way.

Like with the former, let’s say that there was an attack that is just a stun or a bleed or some other mild irritant, and another that is the massive damage, and both proc a headshot warning. If a player sees a crosshair over their head, they would want to do something. It might be the big shot that could decimate them. But if they burn their best defenses and it turns out to be the chip shot, then they are wide open for the follow-up. Does the Sniper lead with the damage or with the fake-out? Or does he keep spamming the fake-out to keep the target dancing? Could be interesting.

For the latter, maybe have a skill that is unblockable, unreflectable, and actually does MORE damage to people using those sorts of abilities, worthless otherwise. So they can use the Headshot to force a defensive reaction, but then punish the opponent for making that defensive reaction. Again, interesting options, I think. The point is that in every case, the target would have things he can do to avoid it, none of it would be coming out of nowhere, which is the primary angst against effective Thieves.

The problem with thief, and elite specs is no matter what you add to class from an elite spec, your still left with 2/3 of base class. The entirety of thief so far, including dare devil is based around +1 support and mobility in a pvp context. No matter what anet introduces, you cannot escape base thief.

Sure you can. I’m not saying that they should do this, so don’t come back with “that would be stupid,” but IF they wanted to, they could design an elite spec with passive traits that remove Steal entirely, remove Dodging entirely, put you in permanently Revealed state, apply a special debuff to you that prevents you from Shadowstepping, etc.

Pretty much the only thing about Thieves that would be hard to mess with would be removing Initiative, since changing that would mean creating CDs for all existing weapon skills.

So basically, if they want to create some alternate playstyle for a new spec, they can design that spec in such a way that it nerfs/disables some of the Thief’s core mechanics, in exchange for providing some significant bonuses that would be OP if they were applied directly to a vanilla Thief. And of course if they do this they should consider existing traitlines and weapon sets, so that the buffs they apply would provide value to those as well to make up for the nerfs.

A similar example I was discussing on the Ele boards was the idea of an elite spec that would drop the available elements from four to two, which would make it easier for them to add 2H weapons to the class. This would be a fundamental change and would make 2/5 trait lines mostly useless, but could be offset by other changes in the spec that would bring them back into function, like by having Air traits proc when in Fire attunement as well.

You’ve effectively described half of my proposal in the sense of changing profession mechanics. I think this is the best approach of all. The reaper is the most conceptually sound elite spec because it changes major function over slight tweaks or additional mechanics.

I’m pretty sure what Eval meant primarily is that having just an elite spec change the design of how the thief performs on its most basic levels and getting it to change the profession’s use-cases entirely is a very difficult change given the thief’s mechanics and current design. We’re seeing this kind of runoff already with the Druid enabling unexpected-outcome builds that offer abominable amounts of sustain and lots of damage. A lot of this has to do with baseline sustain capabilities and impressive mobility the Druid offers via the staff. Giving things like sustain and burst damage are simply very difficult to give to the thief without getting into gimmicks, because on the fundamental level of design, the profession is fairly complete and well-done (only some implementation-level things are lackluster, many of which are not the fault of poor design on behalf of the thief, either).

Good design should never exclude prior game mechanics or force players into making false choices. This is particularly why I prided myself in my proposal’s design – there’s not a single build in the game that the rifle, profession mechanic, and trait are incompatible with when in isolation, and none of the builds were particularly dominant over the others aside from some potentially-numerically-necessary tweaks.

Ohoni.6057:

Does it have to be headshotting per se?

Ideally? I’m somewhat flexible on it, but I think the basic thematic concept is important. A “thiefy rifle user” is one who would attack from the sidelines with precision, taking out the enemy forces.

But does ‘supporting with precision from the sidelines’ need to mean “BOOM! Headshot!”?

A precision shot to the arm or leg might cause Weakness or Cripple respectively. An electrified shot might stun, daze, or confuse. A poisoned dart might cause pretty much any effect that seems fitting depending on the nature of the poison (sure, Poison is the most obvious, but it could also be a concoction that inflicts slow, daze, torment, confusion…).

The sniper shot could well be a shot to the jugular that causes massive bleeding – which would be enough to kill a non-heroic assassination target, and against more powerful and well-equipped targets like PCs, it might still be more reliable than trying to get a bullet through an orichalcum helmet while still allowing for more counterplay than a massive power shot out of nowhere.

I don’t see a volley of shots as being superior to a single shot in terms of counterplay. Maybe the split second between the first hit and the last would be enough for expert players to put up a defense, but it wouldn’t amount to anything in lower tier play, which is where most of the complaining comes from. Again, if the goal is to promote counterplay, I really think that the best option is to put a sniper marker over the target’s head when you power up the big shot.

Doesn’t need to be a split second between the first shot and the last. Make it a channel of a second or two, and most people, if they’re alert, would probably be able to get some defence up. I don’t consider myself the best player in the world, and I’m on Australian ping, but I can usually respond to a rapid fire or similar channeled attack (in fact, one of the complaints that was made against RF was that the channel was long enough that it was possible to respond appropriately and still take half the damage anyway because your dodge or other defensive move expired before the RF ended).

The ‘target marker’ is a possible source of counterplay, although I don’t think it should be a case of a ‘should I dodge this one or not’ dichotomy, particularly since in some cases the target might have no choice (a guardian with Aegis up, for instance). Particularly since the people who don’t bother to learn the ins and outs of professions they don’t play may get the idea that it’s one killer attack that kills them whatever they do.

A better possibility might be to make it so that putting up the target marker and firing are separate key presses, with the damage of the actual shot ramping up the longer the marker is up (up to a certain maximum) – so the target doesn’t necessarily know when they’d need to defend, and could even be faked out by the thief not taking the shot at all (which, if it’s not a stealth attack, may allow the thief to put the target marker up again with a much shorter cooldown). The thief should probably be unable to move while the target marker is up (they can cancel the marker by moving), and there probably should be some means by which the enemy can knock the thief out of the targeting stance: possibly they get knocked out if they take damage or even if an enemy just gets too close, in order to reward the opponent for locating the thief before the shot is taken.

One possibility, in fact, could be to make it a profession mechanic. Putting the target marker up is a function key skill (probably F3). This roots the thief, but means their next attack against the target has extra effect based on how long the marker is up (possibly dealing extra damage, and any conditions or effects inflicted have a longer duration). This would obviously be most useful for ranged weapons, but all current thief weaponsets have some ranged attack that could be boosted by this, and it may be possible to use it to set up deadly backstabs against stunned or immobilised targets or something like that.

But does ‘supporting with precision from the sidelines’ need to mean “BOOM! Headshot!”?

It doesn’t have to, but I think that thematically it’s pretty necessary, about as vital as Dagger having Backstab. As I say, they could balance it so that it’s an inefficient and thus underused part of the PvP toolkit, but it’s needed for PvE. I feel that if ANet attempts to launch a Rifle Thief without a headshot style attack, then no matter how balanced it might be, no matter how clever their alternatives are, massive portions of the potential audience would automatically be disappointed.

Besides which, being able to deal massive damage from 1200+ range is the role that is needed for Thief weapons at the moment, since they nerfed the ranges on the existing weapons. Thieves need a way to deal credible damage to targets they can’t or don’t want to get anywhere close to.

A precision shot to the arm or leg might cause Weakness or Cripple respectively. An electrified shot might stun, daze, or confuse. A poisoned dart might cause pretty much any effect that seems fitting depending on the nature of the poison (sure, Poison is the most obvious, but it could also be a concoction that inflicts slow, daze, torment, confusion…).

For one thing, Shortbow and Pistol already cover a lot of this stuff, so it would basically be putting them in a sack, shaking it up, grabbing what spills out, and then restoring their pre-nerf ranges. I’d expect at least a couple such moves, but all CC or slow DPS is NOT what the Thief needs in a new spec. Maybe some other class for that. Maybe Ranger Rifle.

The sniper shot could well be a shot to the jugular that causes massive bleeding – which would be enough to kill a non-heroic assassination target, and against more powerful and well-equipped targets like PCs, it might still be more reliable than trying to get a bullet through an orichalcum helmet while still allowing for more counterplay than a massive power shot out of nowhere.

And as I said above, that can be one thing Snipers could do, but should not be the only way for them to deal massive damage. And again, perhaps it could be that the Power attack is nerfed in PvP and the condi attack buffed for PvP relative to PvE, so that players have more incentive to go with the more target-friendly option.

Perhaps they could go with something similar to the DD GM traits (although learning from history, make them the Adept Traits instead), in which the default “scoped shot” attack is a generic mid-damage move that’s marginally useful but nothing impressive, then Trait A changes it to deal massive Power damage (perhaps with a penalty elsewhere), the Trait B option makes it deal massive Condi damage, and Trait C is something that would benefit other weapons in a significant way, so Snipers that want to forgo or backpack the Rifle would still have something to slot in that row.

The ‘target marker’ is a possible source of counterplay, although I don’t think it should be a case of a ‘should I dodge this one or not’ dichotomy, particularly since in some cases the target might have no choice (a guardian with Aegis up, for instance). Particularly since the people who don’t bother to learn the ins and outs of professions they don’t play may get the idea that it’s one killer attack that kills them whatever they do.

Perhaps, and I guess care would need to be taken to reduce the chance that it is unavoidable, like with Aegis. Maybe the “penetrator round” would only apply to the more active defenses, like walls, rather than personal skills. Maybe it could also damage you through Evades, since those are also actives.

A better possibility might be to make it so that putting up the target marker and firing are separate key presses, with the damage of the actual shot ramping up the longer the marker is up (up to a certain maximum) – so the target doesn’t necessarily know when they’d need to defend,

That could get kind of tough, since the Thief could just wait out the target (up to the maximum), while the Target would have no clue, unless they knew where the shot was coming from and it was slow enough to react while in flight, which means it would be easy to sidestep. It should probably be a hitscan attack, or close to it. I think for it to be effective counterplay, it would need to be at least a little predictable.

The thief should probably be unable to move while the target marker is up (they can cancel the marker by moving), and there probably should be some means by which the enemy can knock the thief out of the targeting stance: possibly they get knocked out if they take damage or even if an enemy just gets too close, in order to reward the opponent for locating the thief before the shot is taken.

I don’t think that this class should be as stealth-oriented as others, possibly even very stacked against stealth, since being able to get away is one of the main issues people have with the idea of the Sniper Thief. So I think this is something that should be effective even when everyone knows where the Thief is, he’s over there, pointing a gun at you, the problem is what are you going to do about it? If Thieves become massively vulnerable to being shut down, then I think that would make them useless. Now if people wanted to burn actual interrupts on it, that’s certainly one option available to them, again, it’s draining their defensive deck.

One possibility, in fact, could be to make it a profession mechanic. Putting the target marker up is a function key skill (probably F3). This roots the thief, but means their next attack against the target has extra effect based on how long the marker is up (possibly dealing extra damage, and any conditions or effects inflicted have a longer duration). This would obviously be most useful for ranged weapons, but all current thief weaponsets have some ranged attack that could be boosted by this, and it may be possible to use it to set up deadly backstabs against stunned or immobilised targets or something like that.

It would be too complicated to give unique boosts to each weapon, but maybe just a flat bonus to all attacks of some kind. I don’t love the idea, but it has potential.

I really don’t believe we would get a long range sniper spec, and I also feel that rifle thief is so heavily tied to that concept that it would be quite unlikely for it to be anything else without disappointing a lot of people.

Also that would automatically mean it’s bad for open world if it is single target, and bad for raids/fractals because long range weapon would obviously have less dps than melee sets.

Also there is a very good reason why thief is so heavily tied to melee weapons in pvp. While conquest makes you want to fight on close ranges, it would be almost impossible to really fight against ranged thief on many of the existing classes.

While i would love rifle from aesthetic standpoint and it would be great to have long range weapon, i have hard time believing a-net could implement that in a way where it is balanced, not horrible for the health of the game and both of those not just in one game mode. Also we already have p/p

Oh. This rumor again? Go figure…

Also that would automatically mean it’s bad for open world if it is single target, and bad for raids/fractals because long range weapon would obviously have less dps than melee sets.

It definitely needs some versatility. I think that the major DPS should be a single target blast, which will be good for boss fights, but I also think that it should have a solid AoE, and for that I’m thinking something along the lines of Revenant Mace 2, where you fire a projectile, but it blasts a horizontal block along the ground, like “whoosh” that damages all enemies along a roughly 900×150 rectangle. and maybe also a different shot could be a 1200 range single fire with a 150 radius AoE on hit.

There are various options, the rifle will have six total attacks (counting the Stealth one), and only 1-2 of them need to be max range single target bursts, the others should fill other roles. Perhaps they could even give the spammable attack a limited line-pierce option, allowing you to use that for AoE with good aim.

As for “it wouldn’t be as damaging as melee,” well fair enough, but we have plenty of good melee options. There’s no harm in continuing to use those in cases where melee is the best choice, and more melee options isn’t as needed as a proper standoff range option. If you want to use melee, use a staff DD, or use D/D, or D/P, or one of the other combos. And whatever elite spec that comes out, maybe it could offer strong options that would also make the existing melee weapons strong in new ways. We’ve been discussing perhaps making this spec a bit tankier, for example. Or maybe Ricochet could make a come-back.

While conquest makes you want to fight on close ranges, it would be almost impossible to really fight against ranged thief on many of the existing classes.

Again, that depends on how the new spec balances out the core toolkit of movement and stealth. If using the new Rifle/Spec also hamstrings some of the existing options in exchange for new ones, it won’t be an issue. It’s always annoying fighting a max ranged enemy when you don’t have the weapons for it, but balanced right a Thief would be no more annoying than a Ranger or DH.

To be honest I really like the idea of thief getting a slower burst rifle, maybe the hits don’t do quite as much damage up front as their melee kit, or have longer channel times, or apply things like vulnerability. To counter this, they get a form of Guardian’s Meditations, which would be more bunkery skills that allow them to have defenses other than just “dodge” or “stealth” Maybe that goes against the “core” gameplay of thief but I really feel like elite specializations not giving new ways of playing an old class really misses out on opportunities. I agree with the sentiment that a new elite spec should give a new role aside from +1 or decap.