Guild Wars 2

Was thinking, what if our stolen skill, was something we held onto even after it’s cast?

This would require much rework to the specific skills stolen from each profession, but the idea is F2 becomes whatever you stolen skill and it gets it’s corresponding cooldown. So you steal from a ranger, your F2 becomes the water field when you command, with a cooldown separate of steal itself. When you steal from say a Mesmer, now you get ectoplasm.

Like I said this would require reworks on the cooldowns of those skills, I mean I can’t imagine all boons for 10 seconds every 35 seconds, but it’s something thief would search, and hold onto rather than collect and have to decide “do I need this at this time or should I just toss it into the fray?”. I Think this would require careful thinking over cooldowns to be justified but it would certainly add to an evolving fight if done right, and add some degree of choice in what you steal. Say your build has 0 steal related traits, and you want some extra power skills. Steal from a warrior, and keep steal itself off cooldown afterwards, adapt and conquer. You would still have to decide," do I want to swap this skill for something else?", it would keep its unique flavor while adding a way for thief to adjust to the situation not just on that moment but for future encounters.

so basically you just want an extra skill slot lol.

although I think stealing is limited, I think that’s how it was meant to be. Just as you describe.

“Do I save this for a rainy day or do I discard it and hope for something more useful?”

If made your way, every thief would gun for the same skill each time they get onto map. Next thing would be, “can we keep this skill between map loads and logouts/ins, a little quality of life ya know?”

I would skull fear just so you know ;-)

They debated this early on in development. It’s something they thought of and decided against.

I’d simply be happy with an F2 that just discarded the F1 without using it

Agreed that some of the steal skills are really kitten awful, worst of the lot is the Engineer’s.

I like Steal the way it is. It’s an utility not some kind of uber skill that thief is supposed to focus on.
Steal can become a powerful tool if traits are set up correctly.

But I would keep in mind to not be dependent on it.

Kadin.2356:

I’d simply be happy with an F2 that just discarded the F1 without using it

That’d be nice. And also I’d like to see the steal cooldown when holding a stolen skill.

LoneWolfie.1852:

Agreed that some of the steal skills are really kitten awful, worst of the lot is the Engineer’s.

Throw Gunk isn’t all that bad, you can leap through it for some chaos armor.

Schizophasia.6781:

LoneWolfie.1852:

Agreed that some of the steal skills are really kitten awful, worst of the lot is the Engineer’s.

Throw Gunk isn’t all that bad, you can leap through it for some chaos armor.

Yea but sometimes you just want to steal instead of throwing down a big “please give me revealed” field. Might be simpler just to change the code to be like poison field so that it doesn’t count as damage.

Same problem with the warrior stolen ability. Sometimes I just want to steal and not spin in place for 5 seconds without being able to dodge.

i use the gunk as anti supply crate weapon, throw it on the turrets. but yeah i dont like it that much either. stealth isnt available when that field is hitting stuff.

Kadin.2356:

I’d simply be happy with an F2 that just discarded the F1 without using it

^This for me as well.

Kadin.2356:

Schizophasia.6781:

LoneWolfie.1852:

Agreed that some of the steal skills are really kitten awful, worst of the lot is the Engineer’s.

Throw Gunk isn’t all that bad, you can leap through it for some chaos armor.

Yea but sometimes you just want to steal instead of throwing down a big “please give me revealed” field. Might be simpler just to change the code to be like poison field so that it doesn’t count as damage.

Same problem with the warrior stolen ability. Sometimes I just want to steal and not spin in place for 5 seconds without being able to dodge.

You can dodge, just not with weapon skill evades.

I agree, the tick of direct damage throw gunk has is really a problem, especially if you’re a p/d thief and want to get them confusion stacks (5X from sneak attack).

Anywho, I don’t think there would be any 1 set stolen skill everyone flocks towards. Almost all of them have their place, and not to mention if you want “steal” traits to go off, you have to steal, meaning your F2 would change. Granted only a few stolen skills are universal to thief, it also frees up the steal slot.

I recall a post mentioning turning F2-F4 into a rotation of our stolen skills, so we can save them for that rainy day but that’d almost feel too convenient with the various combo’s you’d be able to pull off. It certainly would seem meaningful though, something I’ve dealt with a long time on thief is getting a stolen skill I need right then and there, sometimes my build has no use for steal other than what comes out of it, and I hate cycling through kitty litter. Maybe if it was F2 and F3 were your stolen skills, and if you don’t spend them it kicks the earliest one out? (Steal from a ranger, steal from a warrior. Neither skill used, now you steal from a Mesmer, the ranger stolen skill gets kicked). I think it would add to thief gameplay a lot, to have them prepare for a fight and to some degree, choosing their profession mechanic vs just handling what’s in front of them, especially when not all stolen skills are universally thief friendly.

Kadin.2356:

Schizophasia.6781:

LoneWolfie.1852:

Agreed that some of the steal skills are really kitten awful, worst of the lot is the Engineer’s.

Throw Gunk isn’t all that bad, you can leap through it for some chaos armor.

Yea but sometimes you just want to steal instead of throwing down a big “please give me revealed” field. Might be simpler just to change the code to be like poison field so that it doesn’t count as damage.

Same problem with the warrior stolen ability. Sometimes I just want to steal and not spin in place for 5 seconds without being able to dodge.

They changed that a couple of patches ago btw. You can actually dodge during whirling axes without breaking the animation, so unlike daggerstorm, you can dodge disables like bull’s charge and continue to apply pressure. A bit off topic, but I though it was worth mentioning.

On topic: I like the idea of an extra button, but I honestly don’t think we need it. I spec 30 in trickery (who doesn’t these days?) and most of the stolen items are useful enough that I’ll be using them within 20 secs regardless. It would be nice for steal to be more useful without heavy trait investment, although I wouldn’t want to be the one trying to balance that.

Jugglemonkey.8741:

Kadin.2356:

Schizophasia.6781:

LoneWolfie.1852:

Agreed that some of the steal skills are really kitten awful, worst of the lot is the Engineer’s.

Throw Gunk isn’t all that bad, you can leap through it for some chaos armor.

Yea but sometimes you just want to steal instead of throwing down a big “please give me revealed” field. Might be simpler just to change the code to be like poison field so that it doesn’t count as damage.

Same problem with the warrior stolen ability. Sometimes I just want to steal and not spin in place for 5 seconds without being able to dodge.

I spec 30 in trickery (who doesn’t these days?)

Not everyone spec’s into trickery. Its A build, not THE build.

NinjaEd.3946:

Jugglemonkey.8741:

Kadin.2356:

Schizophasia.6781:

LoneWolfie.1852:

Agreed that some of the steal skills are really kitten awful, worst of the lot is the Engineer’s.

Throw Gunk isn’t all that bad, you can leap through it for some chaos armor.

Yea but sometimes you just want to steal instead of throwing down a big “please give me revealed” field. Might be simpler just to change the code to be like poison field so that it doesn’t count as damage.

Same problem with the warrior stolen ability. Sometimes I just want to steal and not spin in place for 5 seconds without being able to dodge.

I spec 30 in trickery (who doesn’t these days?)

Not everyone spec’s into trickery. Its A build, not THE build.

Definitely, it just feels to me like 30 trickery is becoming really popular recently, I was clumsily trying to comment on that :P

I find the steal traits so useful that I now feel like something is missing when I’m not running 30 trickery. You could probably use that as an argument to buff untraited steal tbh.

Kadin.2356:

I’d simply be happy with an F2 that just discarded the F1 without using it

Just incase any dev looks at his topic: IMPLEMENT THIS, PLEASE.

See my thread here for the why of it: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Suggestion-Drop-stolen-item-F2/first#post3623980

Jugglemonkey.8741:

NinjaEd.3946:

Jugglemonkey.8741:

Kadin.2356:

Schizophasia.6781:

LoneWolfie.1852:

Agreed that some of the steal skills are really kitten awful, worst of the lot is the Engineer’s.

Throw Gunk isn’t all that bad, you can leap through it for some chaos armor.

Yea but sometimes you just want to steal instead of throwing down a big “please give me revealed” field. Might be simpler just to change the code to be like poison field so that it doesn’t count as damage.

Same problem with the warrior stolen ability. Sometimes I just want to steal and not spin in place for 5 seconds without being able to dodge.

I spec 30 in trickery (who doesn’t these days?)

Not everyone spec’s into trickery. Its A build, not THE build.

Definitely, it just feels to me like 30 trickery is becoming really popular recently, I was clumsily trying to comment on that :P

I find the steal traits so useful that I now feel like something is missing when I’m not running 30 trickery. You could probably use that as an argument to buff untraited steal tbh.

In a sense it’s what I’m aiming at. I’ve posted it in the past, I don’t feel steal on its own is all that significant compared to other profession mechanics. We aren’t the only class that can evade a lot, we aren’t the only class with stealth access, and we aren’t the only class that can blow people up at any given time. So basically we get steal, which evolves with the fight but it’s granted skills aren’t all that great all the time. If you spec for steal (my pvp build is), it’s an incredible mechanic. However if you don’t, it’s more so just a glorified gap closer.