Worst Thief in the world, yes I am.
Staff vehemently defended
I’d say it could cover a number of areas. firstly, I think your appraisal of current weapon uses is narrow. for conditions, I’d say dual daggers is better (poison on 1 and bleed on 3, also cripple on 4 if we’re counting non-damaging) than pistol main (bleed on 1 and immobilise on 2, if we count non-damaging ) but that aside, i’ll try and see what the staff could bring:
- Sustained High DPS – like a warrior’s greatsword.
- Burst DPS – it exists, but the only thing better than redundancy is redundancy
- Decent condition stacking – something we don’t really have, D/D and P/D only have about 2 damaging conditions each, and burning’s the only good condition now anyway (much as I hate the fact)
- Control. pistol offhand only has daze. (blind’s not really control) we could have a knockback, a knockdown, some kind of uncrossable barrier. none of which we get right now.
- Mobility/Evasion – again, sword has some. we could get dashes, distortion, full evades (troll poll perhaps?) or even an unrelenting assault-style high-movement move.
- Defensive – the staff could have blocks, grant protection/aegis/heals. defense is one area the thief is incredibly weak.
or Anet could surprise us with something else entirely. we won’t know until we see.
the other point is that the staff could easily be made to do any of the existing things better. we’re not really great at anything more than burst DPS, so we could see improvements in almost any area.
Another one to use as fuel…
“Revenant is actual proof that devs read the necromancer forum” – Pelopidas.2140
The Dhuumfire thread
The Dhuumfire thread
I’d say it could cover a number of areas. firstly, I think your appraisal of current weapon uses is narrow. for conditions, I’d say dual daggers is better (poison on 1 and bleed on 3, also cripple on 4 if we’re counting non-damaging) than pistol main (bleed on 1 and immobilise on 2, if we count non-damaging ) but that aside, i’ll try and see what the staff could bring:
- Sustained High DPS – like a warrior’s greatsword.
- Burst DPS – it exists, but the only thing better than redundancy is redundancy
- Decent condition stacking – something we don’t really have, D/D and P/D only have about 2 damaging conditions each, and burning’s the only good condition now anyway (much as I hate the fact)
- Control. pistol offhand only has daze. (blind’s not really control) we could have a knockback, a knockdown, some kind of uncrossable barrier. none of which we get right now.
- Mobility/Evasion – again, sword has some. we could get dashes, distortion, full evades (troll poll perhaps?) or even an unrelenting assault-style high-movement move.
- Defensive – the staff could have blocks, grant protection/aegis/heals. defense is one area the thief is incredibly weak.
or Anet could surprise us with something else entirely. we won’t know until we see.
the other point is that the staff could easily be made to do any of the existing things better. we’re not really great at anything more than burst DPS, so we could see improvements in almost any area.
what sustain could we have with a thief’s armor and HP?
or are we supposed to run solider’s amulet and be a crappy GS warrior?
i doubt staff would bring us anything useful because it just simply doesn’t jive with our talents, design, ect ect.
I’d like staff to focus more on putting on a stylish acrobatic display with good sustained DPS, personally. It really doesn’t seem like a condition weapon to me, unless you want to count vulnerability, but bleeds and poisons and such seem more suited for bladed weapons. Controls would be okay, but it’d be tricky considering thieves use initiative rather than cooldowns.
So I can definitely see it being a solid sustained DPS, possibly with good vulnerability stacking and access to evades. To make sustained DPS viable, an aggressive, cleaving fighting style would probably go well with SoM and IP as well (the removal of Ricochet really hurt this trait combination for me, but that’s a whole other topic).
This is just off the top of my head though. We’ll see what actually happens when the thief elite spec gets revealed, whatever it may be.
I’d say it could cover a number of areas. firstly, I think your appraisal of current weapon uses is narrow. for conditions, I’d say dual daggers is better (poison on 1 and bleed on 3, also cripple on 4 if we’re counting non-damaging) than pistol main (bleed on 1 and immobilise on 2, if we count non-damaging ) but that aside, i’ll try and see what the staff could bring:
- Sustained High DPS – like a warrior’s greatsword.
- Burst DPS – it exists, but the only thing better than redundancy is redundancy
- Decent condition stacking – something we don’t really have, D/D and P/D only have about 2 damaging conditions each, and burning’s the only good condition now anyway (much as I hate the fact)
- Control. pistol offhand only has daze. (blind’s not really control) we could have a knockback, a knockdown, some kind of uncrossable barrier. none of which we get right now.
- Mobility/Evasion – again, sword has some. we could get dashes, distortion, full evades (troll poll perhaps?) or even an unrelenting assault-style high-movement move.
- Defensive – the staff could have blocks, grant protection/aegis/heals. defense is one area the thief is incredibly weak.
or Anet could surprise us with something else entirely. we won’t know until we see.
the other point is that the staff could easily be made to do any of the existing things better. we’re not really great at anything more than burst DPS, so we could see improvements in almost any area.
I was going for the current purposes, not meta per se but more how people have successfully used them. I have not seen any successful( nor made) D/D condi. P/D is better by leagues (bleed, immob/vuln, torment, cripple, vuln again).
Sustained dps might be a thing, problem is the thief defensive options (not skills, traits) are LIMITED at best. I don’t think thats the plan, and if it is mass hysteria and exodus will probably follow before anyone attempts to figure it out. Burst dps might be a thing, and if it that means daggers will be 100% obsolete, so again hysteria/exodus. Condi stacking is p/d and no way will staff be condi. Control and Evasion are where I see it working with low to minimal damage- probably stun from stealth and a dodge spam attack similar to pistol whip? And again defense. All they can do at this point is turn staff into a REACTIVE set, but sword is reactive already right?
Not trying to shoot you down, just playing at what I see happening that doesn’t outright murder another weapon set. And all I see if control, evasion, and defense as a mixture. Probably control/defense. Personally I won’t be excited on this as I already stated I’d love GS or sword-offhand, however I’d be even less hyped if it turns out to be support. Thief is never support, EVER, for any reason. Honestly trying to wrap my head around how we datamined a staff and who said that’d be a good plan? I can’t put any conceptual ideas to making it work without either obsoleting a weapon set (s/d is pretty close to gone) or fulfilling a niche that is anti-assassin. =/ Not to mention we are the last reveal, so we get less ideas and less hype potential. =/
Super worried. Need community help to figure this out. I am not complaining (intentionally, I might be without realizing), I just need to know. Tired of waiting and using my admittedly empty noggin to figure this out.
Worst Thief in the world, yes I am.
I probably spelled that wrong, but whatevs. What niche is it going to fill now? Support?
Daggers are your quick bursty (main and off, while d/d 3 is…uh…in the wrong place)
Sword is your evasion
Pistol main is your condi
Pistol off is your controlGenuinely curious. I personally would love an execution in reverse weapon (sword offhand, does more damage more hp target has. synergy with HS which does more for more missing), but everyone is set on staff and I’m hearing that we already have datamined confirmation (which I can never find). Whaddya guys think it’ll do? I have a feeling its gonna be boon spammy support.
I honestly don’t know what it will do cause the common trope for staffs is jumpy dodgy acrobat. I think that sounds fun but I don’t know how much that would widen our current options.
I’m hoping that it is more shadow magic based with both mid range and melee options in the kit personally. Similar to guardian sword in the aspect that you can play from multiple ranges.
what sustain could we have with a thief’s armor and HP?
or are we supposed to run solider’s amulet and be a crappy GS warrior?i doubt staff would bring us anything useful because it just simply doesn’t jive with our talents, design, ect ect.
Did you notice that the two most famously unkillable professions are Elementalist and Guardian, both with the same HP as a thief and one with worse armor?
I was going for the current purposes, not meta per se but more how people have successfully used them. I have not seen any successful( nor made) D/D condi. P/D is better by leagues (bleed, immob/vuln, torment, cripple, vuln again).
Sustained dps might be a thing, problem is the thief defensive options (not skills, traits) are LIMITED at best. I don’t think thats the plan, and if it is mass hysteria and exodus will probably follow before anyone attempts to figure it out. Burst dps might be a thing, and if it that means daggers will be 100% obsolete, so again hysteria/exodus. Condi stacking is p/d and no way will staff be condi. Control and Evasion are where I see it working with low to minimal damage- probably stun from stealth and a dodge spam attack similar to pistol whip? And again defense. All they can do at this point is turn staff into a REACTIVE set, but sword is reactive already right?
Not trying to shoot you down, just playing at what I see happening that doesn’t outright murder another weapon set. And all I see if control, evasion, and defense as a mixture. Probably control/defense. Personally I won’t be excited on this as I already stated I’d love GS or sword-offhand, however I’d be even less hyped if it turns out to be support. Thief is never support, EVER, for any reason. Honestly trying to wrap my head around how we datamined a staff and who said that’d be a good plan? I can’t put any conceptual ideas to making it work without either obsoleting a weapon set (s/d is pretty close to gone) or fulfilling a niche that is anti-assassin. =/ Not to mention we are the last reveal, so we get less ideas and less hype potential. =/
Super worried. Need community help to figure this out. I am not complaining (intentionally, I might be without realizing), I just need to know. Tired of waiting and using my admittedly empty noggin to figure this out.
a mixture of dps and evasion could work – the sustain comes from the evasion. but I think the main issue isn’t with what the elite spec/staff could do, it’s what the base profession has to build on. thief has numerous issues, which should have been addressed long ago. if any one of these issues was fixed, that’d open up a ton of viable options.
to be honest, I think you’d be able to find issues with any elite spec weapon, because the base class just isn’t where it needs to be.
As much as I would prefer rifle, I would love staff if it played almost exactly like spear does, like a land version of it.
Think about it, an on demand block, a reliable evade (that would probably have a very cool martial art animation to boot) and a strong AA.
However #2 is like the old flanking strike and tends to miss so I’d rather have a short showdstep on to the target’s back instead of the evade.
And #4 self stuns so I’d rather have what Revs do or just something compeltely different.
The stealth attack could have CC or other utility.
Just the block and instant evade are amazing on their own and would help with the suck balls defence that thieves have now.