Credit goes to the leader of [Teef]
So its been a few days and I’ve been busy with work. Sorry I havn’t gotten to writing this up sooner.
When I first announced this State of Thief I said we were going to focus more on discussion more than buffing. Most of us agree Thief could use some love and that Daredevil is mostly balanced in this power-creep soaked meta. The discussion basically reinforced the collective opinion as there really isn’t much of the elite spec that needs improvement.
Still, despite assuming such things, I went ahead with it and gathered details from the discussion for your viewing pleasure. Starting out with staff…
Staff auto attack
This combo is very solid and fast enough to rival necro’s vuln stacking capabilities. The auto also has double the hit capacity of sword and Unload making it much better to use Signet of Malice than most weaponsets. The reflect at the last attack is also a very nice touch. Pretty much like Ranger’s GS auto except with reflect.
There were a few issues brought up during the discussion. One being the impact this skill puts forth in practice and its aftercast. While it has accumulative weakness on each hit, most times all 3 hits do not land. One way to make most of the hits land is to hit it just before you get into melee distance but it is a bit hard to do on a moving target. But the damage per hit and the low weakness duration makes it mostly not worth the initiative. As for the aftercast, everyone noticed it and it is kind of a turnoff. Makes the skill look a little clunky and adds more risk to the skill than needed.
While the opinion of this skill was as negative as Weakening Charge, it was also compared with Shortbow’s Disabling Shot. Comparing the two, Debilitating Arc is a much better version than it’s counterpart in both utility and effectiveness. It’s faster and removes immobilize. While it is a much better Disabling Shot, willingness to use is iffy among those participating. And just a little note, this comparison was the inspiration behind my last thread.
This was seen as a nice skill, especially as a support device when not focused on by the enemy. One thing that requested, however, was that there was a lingering (1 second) smoke field this skill would produce. Nothing pulsing, just lingering. This way there would be a decent way to stealth with this weapon so we’d have more action with Hook Strike. By the way, Hook Strike was not talked about during the SoT. Sorry :I Feel free to discuss it here.
This skill is great. Nice damage and utility packed into one. My personal issue is that it doesn’t resemble Final Fantasy’s Dragoon Jump skill. But SOME people think the animation would be OP. >:c
It was funny when we got to this skill. The review was negative until it was mentioned that the cast time was reduced from the 2s it used to be to 3/4s. Channeled Vigor has the best HPS (coughsecondtosignetofmalicecough) of all thief heals and is good for both stealthing and evasion builds. Don’t destroy this heal anet.
This is actually a very good skill. The main thing that is ruining it is the time between the blocked attack and the kick. The counter is a bit slow and seems like someone could easily interrupt it. What would fix this is a short evade or a more instant knockdown. Otherwise, awesome stun break. Thank you anet.
This skill has a good concept behind it. But most do not use it. Why it is so will be discussed on a separate thread because there could be multiple causes causing this issue. Personally I think its just clunky AF.
Insane damage but it is difficult to land all hits without assistance. Guess setup is the cost of getting all that damage. You could always increase your chances in landing all hits by using shadowsteps or casting just before getting into melee range. Still the overall reaction was meh.
This skill turns out to be good for just about any kind of build. Slow and Immobilize help with setting up attacks while the poison work with condition builds and hurting heals.
This is an amazing skill. Still a little clunky but the applications for this skill is awesome. Imagine someone getting ressed from down. Using an action camera you can aim the first 2 attacks at the ressers and use the last attack to finish. Or drop your target to near-down and use the skill to quickly down and finish him. Great skill. Do not change please.
This is a decent and basic trait for thief/daredevil. Since most combat is done up close anyways it will pretty much always be active.
The added 10% damage reduction from weakened enemies is a nice touch. The reduction existed before but it really needed the tooltip addition for clarification. Now, combined with Lotus Poison from DA it is very possible to make a poison build where part of the defense is constant weakness. Just something to think about.
Decent trait if you plan on using physical skills. However the -20% CD isn’t noticed as much since the CDs of physical skills are already short. Whatever, free endurance.
Like every on-evade trait, it rewards proper usage of evasion. The heal isn’t very noticeable especially since it only happens every second. One thing that was requested was that it’d get switched with Escapist’s Absolution.
Again another good basic trait. The endurance gain, while nice, doesn’t give enough reason to use this. The added damage is though. One thing suggested was increase the endurance gain per initiative by maybe a point.
Oh man I cannot tell you how badly thief needed something like this. This trait is living proof that anet listens. kitten kissing aside, this really does provide good condition cleanse for evasion builds. And like every other on-evade, it provides cleanse for proper uses. Personally I feel that this is a better idea than on-dodge which would limit 3 cleanses before endurance gain and vigor spam became needed which would drastically reduce potential build diversity.
Really decent trait for interrupt builds. In fact, this would aid in hybrid builds as the damage hits hard even without power. Just max interrupts and you are set.
Good minor. Nothing much to say about it since it is straight forward… but what if… it stole endurance? 
This is necessary to have on a condition build. Why? Each dagger deals all conditions it states to all affected. This also procs Signet of Malice. It essentially turns your dodge into a weird Deathblossom While temporarily increasing your condition damage. I wish the duration of the buff was longer but still. Awesome.
This is also a good skill for repositioning. The dash is actually a bit farther than what it claims to have. If used by itself without movement, it goes it’s specified distance. But the swiftness boost will make it seem like a much farther dash if you keep moving in said direction. And since its really good for repositioning, I might try it with P/P at some point. It made using straight shortbow fun since it simply augmented SB’s in combat mobility. Move > pewpew > move > repeat. However. I dislike the animation.
This trait singlehandedly provided most of our stealthless builds with a stealth option. Pretty much anything x/p. And it does decent damage to boot but it is still an option.
Anyways there you have it. Discuss.
Credit goes to the leader of [Teef]
“Please stop complaining about stuff you don’t even know about.” ~Nocta
(edited by yolo swaggins.2570)
