Guild Wars 2

^didn’t read lol.

PopeUrban.2578:

To the rifle/1200 range camp:

Dude, you still don’t get it do you? They are never (never) going to give us a max ranged spec due to our extremely high disengage ability. A 1200 range thief is never happenning. Combining max range with our ability to easily chain withdraw/shadowstep/stealth is a literal get out of jail free card for both PvE and PvP.

It’s the same reason they changed mob behavior to remember you exist when you stealth, and it’s the same reason they didn’t give us a 1200 range weapon to begin with. They consider stealth, our evade utils, and shadowstepping to be balanced for mid range ranged use, but potentially game breaking for long range use.

If we had a 1200 range weapon we could quite literally kite everything in any game mode with nearly zero risk.

If we see a rifle spec in a future expansion, you can bet that it’s not going to be sniping focused, and in stead it’ll take on a carbine style mechanic and be used as a control weapon at shorbow range.

Thief ranged builds will always be equal parts mobility and range due to the way our class mechanics work. There’s simply not another balanced alternative that wouldn’t allow us to trivialize content by blowing all out init at max range then stealthing/teleporting away until it recharges.

Thief mechanics are not well suited for a max range class. They need to fix P/P, I agree, but our ranged builds will always be far more about mobility/disables, and mid range fighting than they will be about long range fighting. It’s simply the cost we pay for having initiative in stead of cooldowns and having our combination of reliable on-demand stealth combined with reliable on-demand teleports and evasion.

An excellent post and you make very good points as to why 1200 and higher range does not suit the thief model. That said it should also be apparent that thief is being forced into ranged combat in very many instances due to the AOE and the amount of passive traits that trigger when an enemy player engaged at melee range.

It really hard to fight d/d up close and personal when if you do attack you are stunned , set afire feared chilled or standing in circles of AOE that will chew your limited health away in seconds.

I do think these issues need to be addressed first and foremost through a fix to p/p . I never did like the notion of rifle for many of the reasons you elucidated.

Daendur.2357:

Hope it will not be condition oriented…

Me too. Staff doesn’t really seem like a condition weapon to me. We’ll find out soon enough though!

Seabreeze.8437:

Daendur.2357:

Hope it will not be condition oriented…

Me too. Staff doesn’t really seem like a condition weapon to me. We’ll find out soon enough though!

It could cause internal bleeding when you shove it up someone’s…

Doggie.3184:

Seabreeze.8437:

Daendur.2357:

Hope it will not be condition oriented…

Me too. Staff doesn’t really seem like a condition weapon to me. We’ll find out soon enough though!

It could cause internal bleeding when you shove it up someone’s…

(shudders)

I find it strange how strongly everyone is sticking to this clones idea.
I understand Mesmers stole our role as the masters of Stealth, but stealing their role does not help us.
That aside, if memory serves, the data mining suggests the skill type will be Physicals.

That said, some form of “Mastermind” Thief added later, who uses summoned Thieves as their primary focus… I could enjoy that.
I still want the summoned Thieves to at least copy the player’s armor color though.
Personally, I’d quite like a few selectable appearances and an armor color selection, however.

Seabreeze.8437:

Daendur.2357:

Hope it will not be condition oriented…

Me too. Staff doesn’t really seem like a condition weapon to me. We’ll find out soon enough though!

Smacked with a staff in the;
head → daze
crotch → stun
liver → knockdown
kidney → chill
leg → cripple
hip → immobilize
nose/mouth → bleeding
temple – > blindness
chest → weakness

Slowmelt.8547:

I find it strange how strongly everyone is sticking to this clones idea.
I understand Mesmers stole our role as the masters of Stealth, but stealing their role does not help us.
That aside, if memory serves, the data mining suggests the skill type will be Physicals.

That said, some form of “Mastermind” Thief added later, who uses summoned Thieves as their primary focus… I could enjoy that.
I still want the summoned Thieves to at least copy the player’s armor color though.
Personally, I’d quite like a few selectable appearances and an armor color selection, however.

that particular datamining has proven to be pretty unreliable – the berserker’s skills included in it weren’t accurate, and I don’t really trust anything not from That_Shaman.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Seabreeze.8437:

Daendur.2357:

Hope it will not be condition oriented…

Me too. Staff doesn’t really seem like a condition weapon to me. We’ll find out soon enough though!

Smacked with a staff in the;
head -> daze
crotch -> stun
liver -> knockdown
kidney -> chill
leg -> cripple
hip -> immobilize
nose/mouth -> bleeding
temple – > blindness
chest -> weakness

with the exception of the nose/mouth, that’s not really conditions.

the issue is that there are – to my mind – 3 sorts of condition:

• Control Conditions – hard and soft CC. blinds, stuns, knockbacks, etc.
• Multiplier Conditions – conditions that alter the numbers. Vulnerability, weakness, etc.
• Damaging Conditions – the ones that Condition Damage users want. this group is pretty under-represented on thief, which is why we’re one of the worst CD builds around.

so to be a good condition damage weapon, we need more bleed/poison/burning/torment/confusion.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Seabreeze.8437:

Daendur.2357:

Hope it will not be condition oriented…

Me too. Staff doesn’t really seem like a condition weapon to me. We’ll find out soon enough though!

Smacked with a staff in the;
head -> daze
crotch -> stun
liver -> knockdown
kidney -> chill
leg -> cripple
hip -> immobilize
nose/mouth -> bleeding
temple – > blindness
chest -> weakness

Good point. A few of those are CC, and I wasn’t really considering those as conditions, silly me. I guess I’m mostly saying that I want it to be a reliable source of AoE damage as well.

I’d venture it’s going to be more about the control conditions, and perhaps a small amount of what Gray refers to “multiplier” conditions.

Don’t get me wrong, a good swift whack to the temple could def count as a “Confusion” hit, but we see how leery ANet is about tossing a lot of Confusion on classes. (To wit, Mesmer losing Confusing Combatants before the last “big” patch … cause a 33% chance of one stack on a critical hit is “too much…”)

With that in mind, I fully expect Cripple/Knockdown(or Knockback), with a side order of Stun or Weakness. But, that’s just my two coppers.

Now, something that could help Thief on Damaging Conditions? Anet needs to hop to attention, and do a proper Venoms rework. That, and decent Trickery investment could offer some interesting options to play with.

Gray.9041:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Seabreeze.8437:

Daendur.2357:

Hope it will not be condition oriented…

Me too. Staff doesn’t really seem like a condition weapon to me. We’ll find out soon enough though!

Smacked with a staff in the;
head -> daze
crotch -> stun
liver -> knockdown
kidney -> chill
leg -> cripple
hip -> immobilize
nose/mouth -> bleeding
temple – > blindness
chest -> weakness

with the exception of the nose/mouth, that’s not really conditions.

the issue is that there are – to my mind – 3 sorts of condition:

• Control Conditions – hard and soft CC. blinds, stuns, knockbacks, etc.
• Multiplier Conditions – conditions that alter the numbers. Vulnerability, weakness, etc.
• Damaging Conditions – the ones that Condition Damage users want. this group is pretty under-represented on thief, which is why we’re one of the worst CD builds around.

so to be a good condition damage weapon, we need more bleed/poison/burning/torment/confusion.

You should have said it clearly in the first place.

Anyway, ever heard of Spiked Staff of Hundred Impaling Wounds – or – Burning Staff of Agonizing Fury – or – Eternal Tormenting Staff of Seinfeld – or – Staff of Thousand Years of Death?

I’m interested. I hope it won’t be a basic melee weapon like it is for Revenant.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

You should have said it clearly in the first place.

Anyway, ever heard of Spiked Staff of Hundred Impaling Wounds – or – Burning Staff of Agonizing Fury – or – Eternal Tormenting Staff of Seinfeld – or – Staff of Thousand Years of Death?

I wasn’t the original poster, just weighing in with my opinion on thief conditions (seems mostly to be the non-damaging kind)

I’m very excited to whack things in the face with a bifrost! also very excited to match some medium armor with it. Hopefully they do a good job on the bifrost specific animations.

The only thing I want from Anet is to give the auto attack a nice cleave, maybe even something like the guardian staff, so that I can slap PVT on my thief and command smoothly. The stealthiness and mobility won’t hurt either.

Alex.9268:

I’m very excited to whack things in the face with a bifrost! also very excited to match some medium armor with it. Hopefully they do a good job on the bifrost specific animations.

The only thing I want from Anet is to give the auto attack a nice cleave, maybe even something like the guardian staff, so that I can slap PVT on my thief and command smoothly. The stealthiness and mobility won’t hurt either.

PVT on a thief o.o what madness is this?