Guild Wars 2

Since beta I’ve been wanting to play a condition focused Shortbow + Pistol/Dagger thief for my main alt. My problems are our class mechanic feels ineffectual as a ranged thief (enough threads on this already so I won’t go into it any further) but my other concern keeping me from playing it is skills requiring a melee hit first before you can get the other “half” of the skill.

Cloak and Dagger is my primary concern here. I’d gladly pay the initiative cost just for the cloak even if the damage/vulnerability don’t go off. Separate the two and don’t make cloak working dependent on the dagger hitting. It would be amazing to pop cloak at range, either to drop ranged aggro or offensively for a sneak attack for several bleed stacks. The same could be said for Shadow Strike. Being able to use the teleport but forego the damage it provides would be a great option to have.

Thoughts?

The problem with an Initiative based stealth is that it would give us the ability to go into stealth a ridiculous amount of times during a single fight. As unfortunate as it is that you can’t use a stealth attack ability as a ranged Thief, is it really necessary? There are already several utilities you could use for that burst of damage/stun and using CnD to obtain a stealth isn’t half bad if you combine it with Steal.

I think we have enough utilities to drop into stealth at range if you want.

You can use blinding powder for instance as a utility to go into stealth at range if steal is on cooldown…