Thief is not a Thief.

Thief is not a Thief.

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Posted by: Ralathar.7236

Ralathar.7236

Just as the title says the Thief profession is not a thief, it’s an Assassin. I realize this is since it basically is the Assassin from the original Guild Wars but this is the source of most of it’s issues in Guild Wars 2.

Lets look at an overview of the two concepts:

1. Assassin is a person who sneaks in, kills 1 person or a few select people, and then either dies or escapes. It’s all about getting in, killing, and getting out.

2. A thief is someone of dubious origins who tends to do just about anything for money. This ranges from petty theft to assassination. Almost always in a bad situation thieves have become very adaptable and use any means they have to accomplish their goal and escape. This usually leaves them quick witted, acrobatic, dexterous, and able to improvise at will.

So what is the difference really? UTILITY and VERSATILITY!!

Thief in Guild Wars 2 right now has little if any utility and versatility. They are not clever, not wiley, have zero improvisation. The only things they really have atm is stealth, evasion, and killing.

I mean look at all the skills: what provides utility/support?

Heals:
No ally friendly heals. The other classes without a heal that also helps allies are mesmer, elementalist, and warrior. All 3 have quite alot of utility and support if they spec for it. Thief has 1 buff sharing build if they spec for it and can provide weak and inconsistent regen.

So what does the thief have for support and utility outside of CC?

Weapon Skills
Bubkiss, zero, nada. The only other class that does not have some sort of utility/supportive weapon is Engineer. They have a plethora of other utility/supportive options.

Utility skills:

Caltrops:
One of the few support/utility skills it’s a nice example of what kind of support the thief should be able to offer more often. A nice tricky slow patch of good duration and area that also does good bleed damage.

Smokescreen:
A weak and terrible version of wall of reflection. It’s placed at your feet and parallel to you making placement and angling difficult, it only blocks projectiles, and it has a 3 second shorter duration. Used more as a smoke field for blast finishers than it is for it’s intended purpose.

Shadow Refuge: Would be a good support tool if not for it’s limitations. Placed mid battle without direct communication it’s just weak healing and a dark field. Allies will almost instantly break stealth or exit the area. Used most commonly as a selfish tool for the thief to stealth himself or stomp people. Sometimes used as a ghetto support tool to rez downed allies assuming they are not attacking. Will actually mess up other thieves by giving them revealed unexpectedly many times.

Blinding Powder:
Suffer all the same issues as shadow refuge with less benefits. But can at least be used as a blind. Kind of redundant blind with “Cloaked in Shadow” though.

Signet of Shadows:
AOE blind signet YES!! Oh wait, just like the ele it’s tied to our movement speed. Meaning activating it makes us alot more likely to die in the long run. And no way to maintain passive benefits of signets on a thief….boo.

Signet of Agility:
Refilling endurance and curing a condition for nearby allies on a 30 second timer is actually kinda nice. Too bad the signet itself and the signet related traits are all offensively based and the active is supportive.

Scorpion Wire:
This is actually pretty thiefy and useful. Some of that random utility you would expect a thief to have.

Rashanala – 80 Elementalist
Ehmry Bay – Legion of the Iron Hawk [Hawk]

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Posted by: Ralathar.7236

Ralathar.7236

Traps:
Pretty much terrible overall. Weak effects and narrow effect radius. In a game where the thief is wielding pistols and launching explosive arrows he uses a terrible trip wire that breaks after 1 use, a poison trap that only hits a tiny rectangular area though his ARROWS carry enough poison to saturate entire zergs in seconds, an abush trap that calls in a single very weak NPC, and the only decent one is the shadow trap that teleports you stealthed to your victim (assassin lol).

Where is the booby trap explosives when I use explosive arrows? Why is the poison trap a tiny area when the arrows are larger areas and spammable? Why does ambush call a single very weak NPC? Why not at least 2 of em to make it worthwhile? Why do traps reveal you if you are stealthed?

Venoms:
OK in their current form they still feel weak and situational. I supposed that is expected when you consider that you can share them via trait so they have to be weakish. Still the fact they are designed as an apply, use, wait on cooldown skill means that they are terrible in fights that are not over right away.

Thieves Guild:
This is actually decent. One of the thieves carries pistols, one blinds, one uses scorpion wire. not a true supportive skills, but definitely a utility skill and very thiefesque calling in members of your shadowy guild to help fight with clever moves.

Otherwise though: Where is the supportive elite? Every other class has a supportive elite, where is the supportive elite for thieves?

Bottom Line:
Thieves are assasins currently. They are not tricky, do not improvise well, do not have many support options or utility and the support options they have in the form of thrill of the crime and bountiful theft feel tacked on and lacking.

You want a clever trickster class? Play a Mesmer. You want an assassin claiming to be a thief? Play thief.

Rashanala – 80 Elementalist
Ehmry Bay – Legion of the Iron Hawk [Hawk]

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Posted by: Doomdesire.9365

Doomdesire.9365

Well, I think the “improvisation” part comes with steal, and using those makeshift items to your advantage.

But then again the things you steal aren’t really that great.

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Posted by: Sil.4560

Sil.4560

Gonna have to agree on that. Funny thing is, I seem to recall Anet saying that they wanted the thief to be a thief, not an assassin. Whoops.

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Posted by: Anubarak.3012

Anubarak.3012

Sounds like you actually have no idea how to play a thief?!?
Smokescreen is one the best support skills we have… Did you ever do grawlfractal > 40?
Shadow Refuge explain them what to do… my mates know how it works and it saved our fights many times
Signet of Agility My panic button… Its a must have in PvE if you are skilled offensively with 25-30-0-0-15 or 30-30-10-0-0 or 25-30-10-0-5

[rT]

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Posted by: Azraeel.1238

Azraeel.1238

And your point is? Thieves should be in the market all day stealing apples? Poor Tybalt, won’t like his apples stolen!

80 Necromancer (Main) | 80 Thief | 80 Guardian | 80 Warrior
Engineer and Elementalist in progress…

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Posted by: Doomdesire.9365

Doomdesire.9365

And your point is? Thieves should be in the market all day stealing apples? Poor Tybalt, won’t like his apples stolen!

Everytime I use steal 2G from your inventory is automatically transferred to mine?

I would be the most feared guy on the battlefield. Zergs would run from me

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Posted by: vanensang.1389

vanensang.1389

When I think about the term “Thief” as a class then I’d expect more reflex-based skills and terrain-camouflage and better shadowstepping. Actually that class just looks like a thief but in fact its just a GW1 Assassin-copycat with stealth. Why not just implementing a full GW1 Assassin instead? It was way more fun to play and to fight against.

Kodash [DE]
Avallora Erasleigh // e
Tara Airgetlám // m

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Posted by: BobbyT.7192

BobbyT.7192

A name change won’t make all of the QQ go away

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Posted by: Tulisin.6945

Tulisin.6945

Just as the title says the Thief profession is not a thief, it’s an Assassin. I realize this is since it basically is the Assassin from the original Guild Wars but this is the source of most of it’s issues in Guild Wars 2.

Lets look at an overview of the two concepts:

1. Assassin is a person who sneaks in, kills 1 person or a few select people, and then either dies or escapes. It’s all about getting in, killing, and getting out.

2. A thief is someone of dubious origins who tends to do just about anything for money. This ranges from petty theft to assassination. Almost always in a bad situation thieves have become very adaptable and use any means they have to accomplish their goal and escape. This usually leaves them quick witted, acrobatic, dexterous, and able to improvise at will.

The thief fills both of these archetypes as well as a few others. A warrior isn’t just a gladiator or just a rifle-wielding footsoldier. A necromancer isn’t just a minion master or just a bloodmage. GW2 professions do not strictly follow a single archetype, the archetype they mimic is a product of build and play style. Similarly, a thief can fill the trickster archetype as well as the assassin, gunslinger, pirate, and duelist.

Your second definition of the thief is just as restrictive as the first and belies an idea that there is a “right” way to play a thief when really all of these archetypes should be supported.

That said, there’s nothing wrong with the assertion that some archetypes need improvement, and I agree that thieves could use some more utility.

Weapon Skills
Bubkiss, zero, nada. The only other class that does not have some sort of utility/supportive weapon is Engineer. They have a plethora of other utility/supportive options.

Body Shot, while absolutely terrible, can’t really be called anything other than a support weapon skill. Headshot is certainly pure utility, and quite powerful both in PvE (for quickly removing stacks of defiant), and PvP (for interrupting key abilities). Black Powder is an excellent example of a skill that offers incredible versality and utility (your key talking points) by having both defensive (via blind) and offensive (via using it as a combo field) attributes. Flanking Strike also offers thieves a cheap and effective way to strip boons, a valuable utility asset in PvE and PvP. I’d also argue that Choking Gas is most commonly employed as a utility skill in the sense that it mostly intended to spread debilitating conditions (poison + weakness via traits). I’d personally love to see some boon-stacking weapon skills, and I believe the reason they don’t exist is because of fears of thieves stacking up boons quickly through the initiative system.

You’re arguing in favor of thieves having adaptability and flexibility, yet you seem to want “pure” weapons that are full support or full offense.

Shadow Refuge: Would be a good support tool if not for it’s limitations. Placed mid battle without direct communication it’s just weak healing and a dark field. Allies will almost instantly break stealth or exit the area. Used most commonly as a selfish tool for the thief to stealth himself or stomp people. Sometimes used as a ghetto support tool to rez downed allies assuming they are not attacking. Will actually mess up other thieves by giving them revealed unexpectedly many times.

SR is easily one of the most versatile tools in the game, usable and useful at all skill levels for a variety of purposes. Marking one purpose as “ghetto” belies the idea that you believe there are very specific ways each skill should be used and seems to contradict your previous assertion that you want a versatile toolset. In short, you’re saying your way is the right way to play a thief again.

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Posted by: Tulisin.6945

Tulisin.6945

Signet of Shadows:
AOE blind signet YES!! Oh wait, just like the ele it’s tied to our movement speed. Meaning activating it makes us alot more likely to die in the long run. And no way to maintain passive benefits of signets on a thief….boo.

SoS is a poor combat skill in the hands of most thieves and if its passive is saving you from dying then your opponents are terrible anyways. Until thieves get more blind synergy (IE, some sort of trait that grants a debilitating condition application when blind is applied), this skill will continue to be treated like a mount, swapped in for long travel and swapped out for actual fights where short-term swiftness is king.

Signet of Agility:
Refilling endurance and curing a condition for nearby allies on a 30 second timer is actually kinda nice. Too bad the signet itself and the signet related traits are all offensively based and the active is supportive.

Here again is an example of a skill that already has excellent utility, is extremely flexible, and synergizes well with the rest of the thief toolset. Again you’re slamming it for not being “pure” enough in one direction or another. I don’t think you actually want a versatile set of skills.

(edited by Tulisin.6945)

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Posted by: Kasama.8941

Kasama.8941

Gonna have to agree on that. Funny thing is, I seem to recall Anet saying that they wanted the thief to be a thief, not an assassin. Whoops.

Yeah, if you look back at how they described the Thief from the start, it’s quite funny that it has turned into everything they said they didn’t want it to be. I especially like the comment from one of the first Thief videos, from GDC 2011, where they say “unlike other games, stealth is not unlimited in Guild Wars 2. Stealth is a very powerful ability, and so we wanted it to be something that players use strategically, as opposed to a safety-net that they have on all the time”.

80 Ranger | 80 Mesmer | 80 Thief | 80 Guardian | 40 Engineer
“The learned is happy, nature to explore. The fool is happy, that he knows no more.”
-Alexander Pope

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Posted by: Bull Zooker.1672

Bull Zooker.1672

it stole my heart.

and my necro’s pride.

Grandad Fester / Unruly Pigeon – Necromancer by trade

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Posted by: Zacchary.6183

Zacchary.6183

Yeah I never really use stealing anyway. It is useless unless you spec for it imo.

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Posted by: Sil.4560

Sil.4560

Yeah, if you look back at how they described the Thief from the start, it’s quite funny that it has turned into everything they said they didn’t want it to be. I especially like the comment from one of the first Thief videos, from GDC 2011, where they say “unlike other games, stealth is not unlimited in Guild Wars 2. Stealth is a very powerful ability, and so we wanted it to be something that players use strategically, as opposed to a safety-net that they have on all the time”.

rofl, you’re right, I’d forgotten about that gem. At least most thieves aren’t completely invisible 90% of the time. Good thing!

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Posted by: Grounder.7381

Grounder.7381

well.. steal boons are already thief-like.
want to see a steal random item from enemy inventory next!
stealing loot from mobs too..

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Posted by: MrForz.1953

MrForz.1953

Just because it’s named Thief, it still won’t prevent you from dressing in white and red with a hood and carry daggers, as much as it won’t prevent me from hunting you down across the map and even through the ennemy territory if needed. It definitely could use some more utility and less pigeonholing though.

Disgruntled Charr Engineer and Thief – Jade Quarry.

(edited by MrForz.1953)

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Posted by: Stooperdale.3560

Stooperdale.3560

I think first of all we should remember that this is a combat driven game. We’re not in the business of stealing anything from Zaitan or even stealing anything in the fractals. We’re in the business of killing boss mobs. The game concept pushes us away from the thief ideal before we’ve done anything, unless you’re a thief in the style of Conan the Barbarian. In terms of skills we’re not particularly close to an assassin but probably closer to an elusive ninja with our use of blinding, smoke, and shadowsteps.

I think a number of the best thief utilities are fine even if they do not initially seem as good as other classes. Traps and venoms certainly need an improvement. Another thief problem is that we provide support with conditions rather than boons and conditions work poorly against champions and large numbers of enemies (fractal armies).

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Posted by: Grimwolf.7163

Grimwolf.7163

The Thieves are just handled rather poorly in general. Take Venoms for example.
Like you said, they’re terrible because they have to be balanced around the possibility that you can share them with several teammates.
A skill cannot be balanced around the assumption that you WILL have an optional trait; especially a 30 point one at the top of an indirectly related path like Shadow Arts.
If the trait is THAT strong, you need to either remove the trait or make it base-line.
Base-line Venomous Aura would go a long way toward making the Thief a less selfish class, anyway.
And then look at Cloak and Dagger and Black Powder.
Stealth did not originally have Revealed, and no ability was created with that effect in mind. As a result, many are broken in various ways and sometimes even detrimental. Like Last Refuge.
Revealed was only created because Cloak and Dagger and Black Powder specifically allowed Stealth to be spammed to hell.
If you don’t have either X/D or D/P, Stealth is total crap. You’ll have VERY little access to it, and you’ll be hamstrung by Revealed in certain circumstances anyway.
The intelligent approach here would have been to never introduce Revealed, and instead replace those two skills and perhaps reduce the recharge on various Stealth granting utilities and traits.
Without Cloak and Dagger or Black Powder, Blinding Powder alone could easily have a 15 second recharge.

(edited by Grimwolf.7163)

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Posted by: Teamkiller.4315

Teamkiller.4315

And your point is? Thieves should be in the market all day stealing apples? Poor Tybalt, won’t like his apples stolen!

Everytime I use steal 2G from your inventory is automatically transferred to mine?

I would be the most feared guy on the battlefield. Zergs would run from me

Lmao could you imagine a thief vs thief duel -_-.

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Posted by: Tulisin.6945

Tulisin.6945

The Thieves are just handled rather poorly in general. Take Venoms for example.
Like you said, they’re terrible because they have to be balanced around the possibility that you can share them with several teammates.
A skill cannot be balanced around the assumption that you WILL have an optional trait; especially a 30 point one at the top of an indirectly related path like Shadow Arts.
If the trait is THAT strong, you need to either remove the trait or make it base-line.
Base-line Venomous Aura would go a long way toward making the Thief a less selfish class, anyway.

Absolutely, although I don’t necessarily agree that venomous aura should be a baseline, I think it’d work well as an elite (make basilisk a regular utility, it isn’t powerful enough any more to be an elite). Step one to decent venoms on all thieves is definitely nerfing the trait lines though. To truly give thieves a varied toolset I’d like to see venoms made into passive procs with their active effects being swaps between 2/3 effects.

I’m envisioning:
10 % base proc chance, 20-30s cooldown on proc, 15s cooldown on swap (modifiable by traits)

Drake Venoms:
-Ice Drake: As it is now (multiply duration by 3)
-Fire Drake: Applies burning
-Marsh Drake: Applies confusion

Reptile Venoms:
-Skale: As it is now (duration by 3)
-Basilisk: As it is now (same duration)
-Snake: Copy spider venom (duration by 3)

Leeching Venoms:
-Vigorous Venom: Steal 50 endurance (1 dodge) on proc
-Vampire Venom: Decent amount of life leech, the numbers would have to be worked out.
-Thievery Venom: Steals 1-2 boons, if target has no boons when it procs, grant 4 init.

Ambush Venoms:
-Devourer Venom: As it is now, double duration to account for two charges.
-Smokey Venom: 1/4s daze + blind on proc.
-Explosive Venom: Small DD + blast finisher.

New Elite: Venom share with the same effect as now, including forcing the effects to apply on your next attacks instead of being chance-based, which gives the elite a large amount of solo use as well by allowing a venom build to force-proc all of its (now useful) venoms immediately.

There, now venoms are useful, worth building around, but also not required to be an entire build to get use. They help every current build and give thieves access to more conditions and combat options via a unique mechanic. There’s also plenty of room for balanced traits to tweak them (X happens on venom type change, X faster venom proc recharge, X higher chance to proc).

(edited by Tulisin.6945)

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Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

Was there a point to this thread? Are we supposed to be coming up with ideas to make the thief more ‘thiefy’? Or are we just trying to justify the class’ burst and stealth? ANet has made it perfectly clear that the Thief class is meant to the burstiest of the bursty and stealth gets complaints regardless of the game you’re playing. Assassin or Thief (Shadowbane had both which was quite unique) means very little in most games.

Now if we wanted to brain storm ideas to make the thief more fun?

Why not allow them to scale castle walls or maybe debuff walls and doors to take more damage for a few seconds to reflect the Thief sabotaging something? Overpowered? Well think of ways to make it balanced! For example, the thief can scale an enemy wall but within 30seconds they will be ported back out of the enemy structure at the front portal. This way the thief could get in and maybe take out an arrow cart or 2.

Similarly, why not give the thief a sabotage trap where once triggered all siege equipment within 1200 yards is ‘stunned’ for 30 seconds. Would compliment the above.

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Posted by: Fenrir.5493

Fenrir.5493

This is not the way to solve the problem, to solve this problem there are things that are needed:

-Thieves cant enter stealth while in combat unless using special utility skills with high CD

-Abilities that let you enter stealth while in combat, like cloak and dagger should let you enter stealth without the need to hit anyone

-Stealth has a longer CD

-All kind of damage and blocks should reveal the thief

-Reduce draastically the burst damage of abilities like backstab, its not balaced to practically OHKO someone from stealth, its OP.

And this will balance the things, and now the thieves are fixed.

“We also realize that we can make mistakes but we dont care because I HAVE THE POWAAA!!”

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Posted by: Grimwolf.7163

Grimwolf.7163

This is not the way to solve the problem, to solve this problem there are things that are needed:

-Thieves cant enter stealth while in combat unless using special utility skills with high CD

Credibility > Toilet

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Posted by: Shemsu.8721

Shemsu.8721

This is not the way to solve the problem, to solve this problem there are things that are needed:

-Thieves cant enter stealth while in combat unless using special utility skills with high CD

-Abilities that let you enter stealth while in combat, like cloak and dagger should let you enter stealth without the need to hit anyone

-Stealth has a longer CD

-All kind of damage and blocks should reveal the thief

-Reduce draastically the burst damage of abilities like backstab, its not balaced to practically OHKO someone from stealth, its OP.

And this will balance the things, and now the thieves are fixed.

How many threads do you plan to post this garbage in? The class was designed around in combat stealth. lower backstab damage? Backstab does LESS damage than warrior axe auto attack, and less than many classes burst abilities. You need to do some research and learn more about this game before posting such drivel

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Posted by: Ralathar.7236

Ralathar.7236

Sounds like you actually have no idea how to play a thief?!?
Smokescreen is one the best support skills we have… Did you ever do grawlfractal > 40?
Shadow Refuge explain them what to do… my mates know how it works and it saved our fights many times
Signet of Agility My panic button… Its a must have in PvE if you are skilled offensively with 25-30-0-0-15 or 30-30-10-0-0 or 25-30-10-0-5

Smokescreen is total crap compared to wall of reflection or feedback. Heck swirling winds is better. Whether something is useful or not and whether things are competitive or not are two different things.

Shadow Refuge can be good in specific situations with mindful people. It can also screw over other thieves and without voice communication it’s very easy for even good players to run through if already moving and cancel the stealth (or have a projectile in air cancel the stealth). It’s just not reliable or effective at support as intended thanks to revealed upon leaving outside of voice comms.

Signet of Agility is alright, but only really works for damage focused folks. The endurance fill fits but the condition drop for yourself and allies just feels out of place and tacked on. I’d rather have it dropped off of this signet and added to another where it better fits. It’s not about being “pure” as another person suggested, it’s about build variety. Ironically the condition removal would fit better on signet of shadows.

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Posted by: Ralathar.7236

Ralathar.7236

I think first of all we should remember that this is a combat driven game. We’re not in the business of stealing anything from Zaitan or even stealing anything in the fractals. We’re in the business of killing boss mobs. The game concept pushes us away from the thief ideal before we’ve done anything, unless you’re a thief in the style of Conan the Barbarian. In terms of skills we’re not particularly close to an assassin but probably closer to an elusive ninja with our use of blinding, smoke, and shadowsteps.

I think a number of the best thief utilities are fine even if they do not initially seem as good as other classes. Traps and venoms certainly need an improvement. Another thief problem is that we provide support with conditions rather than boons and conditions work poorly against champions and large numbers of enemies (fractal armies).

Look at the other professions and what they can do for support that isn’t directly combat. Look what thief can do. I don’t think it’s unfair to ask thief to have the build options that focus more on sneaky stuff, utility, and support.

Like where is throw dirt (blind/fumble) or cheap shot (Vulnerability/cripple/daze)? We have explosives, blinding powder, and black powder shot but no smoke bomb? Thieves are clever and bring all sorts of dirty fighting and utilize gadgets, tricks, and gizmos. Where are they all at? All we have is more “this will help you assassinate someone”.

Almost all of the utilities that get regularly used are stealth, shadow-step, or directly assist in spike damage. The rest are underwhelming, much like the engineers gadgets.

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Posted by: Ralathar.7236

Ralathar.7236

Was there a point to this thread? Are we supposed to be coming up with ideas to make the thief more ‘thiefy’? Or are we just trying to justify the class’ burst and stealth? ANet has made it perfectly clear that the Thief class is meant to the burstiest of the bursty and stealth gets complaints regardless of the game you’re playing. Assassin or Thief (Shadowbane had both which was quite unique) means very little in most games.

The difference is basically options, build variety, and playstyle flavor. The vast majority of effective builds atm are focused around the assassin aspect because that is what the framework of the class makes effective.

Support and utility are pretty weak compared to all other classes Possible exception being a boon sharing build. But that’s a single support/utility build that might be competitive vs several options for each other class.

More options would also mean 90% of the thieves out there wouldn’t be 2-3 builds people want the crap nerfed out of.

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Posted by: wish.1027

wish.1027

I like the word Ninja

Jade Quarry Warrior Strike Force [SF]
w/ an alt Thief and Guardian.
Math is your friend.

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Posted by: Elthurien.8356

Elthurien.8356

The Thieves are just handled rather poorly in general. Take Venoms for example.
Like you said, they’re terrible because they have to be balanced around the possibility that you can share them with several teammates.
A skill cannot be balanced around the assumption that you WILL have an optional trait; especially a 30 point one at the top of an indirectly related path like Shadow Arts.
If the trait is THAT strong, you need to either remove the trait or make it base-line.
Base-line Venomous Aura would go a long way toward making the Thief a less selfish class, anyway.

Absolutely, although I don’t necessarily agree that venomous aura should be a baseline, I think it’d work well as an elite (make basilisk a regular utility, it isn’t powerful enough any more to be an elite). Step one to decent venoms on all thieves is definitely nerfing the trait lines though. To truly give thieves a varied toolset I’d like to see venoms made into passive procs with their active effects being swaps between 2/3 effects.

I’m envisioning:
10 % base proc chance, 20-30s cooldown on proc, 15s cooldown on swap (modifiable by traits)

Drake Venoms:
-Ice Drake: As it is now (multiply duration by 3)
-Fire Drake: Applies burning
-Marsh Drake: Applies confusion

Reptile Venoms:
-Skale: As it is now (duration by 3)
-Basilisk: As it is now (same duration)
-Snake: Copy spider venom (duration by 3)

Leeching Venoms:
-Vigorous Venom: Steal 50 endurance (1 dodge) on proc
-Vampire Venom: Decent amount of life leech, the numbers would have to be worked out.
-Thievery Venom: Steals 1-2 boons, if target has no boons when it procs, grant 4 init.

Ambush Venoms:
-Devourer Venom: As it is now, double duration to account for two charges.
-Smokey Venom: 1/4s daze + blind on proc.
-Explosive Venom: Small DD + blast finisher.

New Elite: Venom share same effect as now, including forcing the effects to apply on your next attacks instead of being chance-based, which gives the elite a large amount of solo use as well by allowing a venom build to force-proc all of its (now useful) venoms immediately.

There, now venoms are useful, worth building around, but also not required to be an entire build to get use. They help every current build and give thieves access to more conditions and combat options via a unique mechanic. There’s also plenty of room for balanced traits to tweak them (X happens on venom type change, X faster venom proc recharge, X higher chance to proc).

Those skills would be great for an Assassin profession but to be completely honest, venoms and traps just don’t belong in the Thief’s arsenal.

Thieves are traditionally opportunist, backstabbing kittens that rely on exploiting the weakness of their opponents or creating situations that cause the enemy to make mistakes. The thief can then exploit the weakness caused by making said mistakes. They are also light on their feet due to their medium armour and acrobatic nature.

So far, caltrops, blinding powder and smoke screen suit the bag of tricks theme quite well. Roll for Initiative, haste and withdraw compliment the acrobatic nature of the Thief. The majority of weapon skills suit the thief, weapon skills like Flanking Strike, Backstab, Sneak attack, Headshot, Black powder shot, crippling strike and tactical strike all suit the thief style of control and evade. Boon stealing should be one of the thief’s primary abilities, yet it is only possible with flanking strike and bountiful theft.

What doesn’t belong, are the traps, venoms and shadow stepping, which all scream of the evil, invisible ninja/assassins we know from pop culture and other Mmos. Assassins and rangers lay traps, Thieves disarm/disable them.

/rant

Thief is not a Thief.

in Thief

Posted by: Shemsu.8721

Shemsu.8721

In reply to Elthurien

Dont get hung up on the name, it gets annoying when people want to kitten a class because of a name change. The original Dungeons and Dragons class was called thief, not rogue, but had the same skills. Its a name.

By your definition engineers shouldnt even be in game, engineers design things, so shouldnt they be off creating tech for actual soldiers to use. Engineers dont know how to fight.

Thief is not a Thief.

in Thief

Posted by: Zacchary.6183

Zacchary.6183

In reply to Elthurien

Dont get hung up on the name, it gets annoying when people want to kitten a class because of a name change. The original Dungeons and Dragons class was called thief, not rogue, but had the same skills. Its a name.

By your definition engineers shouldnt even be in game, engineers design things, so shouldnt they be off creating tech for actual soldiers to use. Engineers dont know how to fight.

Engineers also use the equipment they work on or build. They also know how to boop someone on the head with a wrench.

Thief is not a Thief.

in Thief

Posted by: Shemsu.8721

Shemsu.8721

In reply to Elthurien

Dont get hung up on the name, it gets annoying when people want to kitten a class because of a name change. The original Dungeons and Dragons class was called thief, not rogue, but had the same skills. Its a name.

By your definition engineers shouldnt even be in game, engineers design things, so shouldnt they be off creating tech for actual soldiers to use. Engineers dont know how to fight.

Engineers also use the equipment they work on or build. They also know how to boop someone on the head with a wrench.

Really? so the guys that design missile systems and tanks are the same guys that operate them in the field? I’m fairly certain those are used by actual soldiers

Thief is not a Thief.

in Thief

Posted by: Elthurien.8356

Elthurien.8356

In reply to Elthurien

Dont get hung up on the name, it gets annoying when people want to kitten a class because of a name change. The original Dungeons and Dragons class was called thief, not rogue, but had the same skills. Its a name.

By your definition engineers shouldnt even be in game, engineers design things, so shouldnt they be off creating tech for actual soldiers to use. Engineers dont know how to fight.

If I am sold a pizza and open the box to find a hamburger it still doesn’t make it a pizza, it’s just a hamburger in a pizza box. I was sold a game with a profession called thief, I created a thief and discovered it was an Assassin, not a Thief.

An engineer can mean a great many things IRL, I held the title of field engineer for quite a few years and never designed a thing. I did learn how to shoot assault rifles and fix equipment while I was a field engineer though.

Thief is not a Thief.

in Thief

Posted by: Shemsu.8721

Shemsu.8721

In reply to Elthurien

Dont get hung up on the name, it gets annoying when people want to kitten a class because of a name change. The original Dungeons and Dragons class was called thief, not rogue, but had the same skills. Its a name.

By your definition engineers shouldnt even be in game, engineers design things, so shouldnt they be off creating tech for actual soldiers to use. Engineers dont know how to fight.

If I am sold a pizza and open the box to find a hamburger it still doesn’t make it a pizza, it’s just a hamburger in a pizza box. I was sold a game with a profession called thief, I created a thief and discovered it was an Assassin, not a Thief.

An engineer can mean a great many things IRL, I held the title of field engineer for quite a few years and never designed a thing. I did learn how to shoot assault rifles and fix equipment while I was a field engineer though.

I guess we will have to disagree, i think you are overly hung up on a name. And your example is flawed, the class is called thief, thieves steal things, press F1, you just stole something, now your a thief.
I guess in the end how you define thief is as irrelevant as how i define engineer. All that matters is how Anet defines thief. And from the description of the class, its a pretty solid fit I think

(edited by Shemsu.8721)

Thief is not a Thief.

in Thief

Posted by: mikefang.4182

mikefang.4182

I can sort of agree here; the thief in this game doesn’t -really- feel like the thief or rogue classes of other games. They seem less like actual thieves (known for things like sneaking, lockpicking, disarming traps, stealing, etc.) and more like lightly-armored fighters that focus more on movement and speed than on heavy armor to absorb damage and strength. However, since the classes are really designed so that no class has anything that can’t be done by every other class, I don’t see how this can be changed without seriously rebuilding the class mechanics.

Thief is not a Thief.

in Thief

Posted by: Zacchary.6183

Zacchary.6183

I can sort of agree here; the thief in this game doesn’t -really- feel like the thief or rogue classes of other games. They seem less like actual thieves (known for things like sneaking, lockpicking, disarming traps, stealing, etc.) and more like lightly-armored fighters that focus more on movement and speed than on heavy armor to absorb damage and strength. However, since the classes are really designed so that no class has anything that can’t be done by every other class, I don’t see how this can be changed without seriously rebuilding the class mechanics.

That is why people from both sides of the thief nerf war say that the profession’s mechanics are poorly designed. Some of us don’t even use half of them.

Thief is not a Thief.

in Thief

Posted by: SharadSun.3089

SharadSun.3089

The Thieves are just handled rather poorly in general. Take Venoms for example.
Like you said, they’re terrible because they have to be balanced around the possibility that you can share them with several teammates.
A skill cannot be balanced around the assumption that you WILL have an optional trait; especially a 30 point one at the top of an indirectly related path like Shadow Arts.
If the trait is THAT strong, you need to either remove the trait or make it base-line.
Base-line Venomous Aura would go a long way toward making the Thief a less selfish class, anyway.

Absolutely, although I don’t necessarily agree that venomous aura should be a baseline, I think it’d work well as an elite (make basilisk a regular utility, it isn’t powerful enough any more to be an elite). Step one to decent venoms on all thieves is definitely nerfing the trait lines though. To truly give thieves a varied toolset I’d like to see venoms made into passive procs with their active effects being swaps between 2/3 effects.

I’m envisioning:
10 % base proc chance, 20-30s cooldown on proc, 15s cooldown on swap (modifiable by traits)

Drake Venoms:
-Ice Drake: As it is now (multiply duration by 3)
-Fire Drake: Applies burning
-Marsh Drake: Applies confusion

Reptile Venoms:
-Skale: As it is now (duration by 3)
-Basilisk: As it is now (same duration)
-Snake: Copy spider venom (duration by 3)

Leeching Venoms:
-Vigorous Venom: Steal 50 endurance (1 dodge) on proc
-Vampire Venom: Decent amount of life leech, the numbers would have to be worked out.
-Thievery Venom: Steals 1-2 boons, if target has no boons when it procs, grant 4 init.

Ambush Venoms:
-Devourer Venom: As it is now, double duration to account for two charges.
-Smokey Venom: 1/4s daze + blind on proc.
-Explosive Venom: Small DD + blast finisher.

New Elite: Venom share same effect as now, including forcing the effects to apply on your next attacks instead of being chance-based, which gives the elite a large amount of solo use as well by allowing a venom build to force-proc all of its (now useful) venoms immediately.

There, now venoms are useful, worth building around, but also not required to be an entire build to get use. They help every current build and give thieves access to more conditions and combat options via a unique mechanic. There’s also plenty of room for balanced traits to tweak them (X happens on venom type change, X faster venom proc recharge, X higher chance to proc).

/drool

I WANT THIS

Faolain Mag Aoidh / Diarmuidh
Leader of Thunderguard
Tarnished Coast Representative, Mist League