Guild Wars 2

What are your opinions on a possible change to the skill “steal” where instead of stealing a one time use skill, you instead steal a temporary weapon set that can be activated and replaces your current skills?

For instance stealing from an ele can grant you a random attunement which can be activated giving you an ele-like skill set for 20s. Of course they should be toned down to promote balanced gameplay, but I like tinkering with the idea that steal actually gives you something more exciting and dynamic rather than “whirling axe(granted it can be useful at times, but it’s not very exciting nor dynamic)”

This would at the same time promote more gameplay flow, less thief cookie cutter builds, more variety, and I think alot of thieves would like to play around with steal and use it more decisively rather than as an opener to a CnD-Backstab combo. I also think that this could improve the PvE thief, being able to steal useful skills from mobs other than a one time use stab that places 1 stack of bleed on your foe.

Thoughts? Opinions? Do you absolutely hate it and think I should jump off a cliff? Do you think it’s glorious and I should be instated as a god?

Different versions of this were tried during early development (including both, versions where steal automatically replaced your weapon, and the option to replace your weapons when you wanted) and no one liked how that worked. At the end the best thing to do was to focus on steal giving 1 single use of a powerful skill while still being able to use your main weapon set instead of replacing it.

I would love a pocket system though (with cooldowns on all buttons if you use any stored item so you can’t steal 3 items and just spam all of them against a poor guy). That would also open room for Steal becoming shadow return after use so ranged thieves can use it without risking their lives (with f2-f3-f4 being the “pockets”) as a profession mechanic shouldn’t be counter-productive with any playstyle on the profession.

I don’t like the idea of random anything in a fight. If it were to happen, which it won’t, there should at least be consistency because I really don’t want to rely on luck as to getting the right random weapon set to counter a specific play style. Also I have no faith in Anet balancing this right.

Doomdesire.9365:

Thoughts? Opinions?

I don’t like it only because none of the new weapon skills will synergize with my traits and gears.

Honestly, I’d rather steal better skills.

As of right now the only ones I sorta like are

1) Ele’s chill
2) Necro’s fear
3) Warrior’s whirling axe (though hate it sometimes cuz you can’t cancel it once started)
4) Thief’s invisibility
5) Mesmer’s all-buff

For the other 3, I have no idea what they are and what they really do…

Excalibur.9748:

Honestly, I’d rather steal better skills.

As of right now the only ones I sorta like are

1) Ele’s chill
2) Necro’s fear
3) Warrior’s whirling axe (though hate it sometimes cuz you can’t cancel it once started)
4) Thief’s invisibility
5) Mesmer’s all-buff

For the other 3, I have no idea what they are and what they really do…

6) Guardian 4 second daze
7) Engineer inflict random condition
8) Ranger regeneration/condition cure tree

Teamkiller.4315:

Excalibur.9748:

Honestly, I’d rather steal better skills.

As of right now the only ones I sorta like are

1) Ele’s chill
2) Necro’s fear
3) Warrior’s whirling axe (though hate it sometimes cuz you can’t cancel it once started)
4) Thief’s invisibility
5) Mesmer’s all-buff

For the other 3, I have no idea what they are and what they really do…

6) Guardian 4 second daze
7) Engineer inflict random condition
8) Ranger regeneration/condition cure tree

Those 3 are pretty bad though. I don’t really use them.

Definitely interesting but I think this would make thief truly op. Although it would promote more “tactical” play.

Excalibur.9748:

Teamkiller.4315:

Excalibur.9748:

Honestly, I’d rather steal better skills.

As of right now the only ones I sorta like are

1) Ele’s chill
2) Necro’s fear
3) Warrior’s whirling axe (though hate it sometimes cuz you can’t cancel it once started)
4) Thief’s invisibility
5) Mesmer’s all-buff

For the other 3, I have no idea what they are and what they really do…

6) Guardian 4 second daze
7) Engineer inflict random condition
8) Ranger regeneration/condition cure tree

Those 3 are pretty bad though. I don’t really use them.

The only bad one is the engineer, and that’s mostly because confusion got nerfed. All of the others are quite powerful. I’d argue the Warrior one is probably the absolute worst one available.

But yea, I wish the healing mechanic was attached to steal instead of mug. I also wish it would always take a boon and the trait just increases the number taken.

Now if I wanted to redesign the whole F1 thing in general, I’d have given the Thief class stances I think where offensive stance would increase crit damage, precise stance would increase crit chance, and precision would increase toughness.

Those 3 are pretty bad though. I don’t really use them.

Placing the ranger tree and heartseekering through the resulting water field actually gives a very decent amount of healing.

Excalibur.9748:

Teamkiller.4315:

Excalibur.9748:

Honestly, I’d rather steal better skills.

As of right now the only ones I sorta like are

1) Ele’s chill
2) Necro’s fear
3) Warrior’s whirling axe (though hate it sometimes cuz you can’t cancel it once started)
4) Thief’s invisibility
5) Mesmer’s all-buff

For the other 3, I have no idea what they are and what they really do…

6) Guardian 4 second daze
7) Engineer inflict random condition
8) Ranger regeneration/condition cure tree

Those 3 are pretty bad though. I don’t really use them.

6 is an interrupt that lasts a huge amount of time. 7 isn’t very good by itself, but allows you to stack confusion and also give tons of AoE Chaos Armor. 8 gives amazing team healing options.